esty assures her subjects that in any event the religion of the realm shall not be interfered with. At the same time she writes to Pius V to congratulate him on the victories already gained, and to inspire him with hopes of victories yet to come : ' With the help of God and his holiness,' she says, ' she will yet leap over the wall' " {Harper's Magazine, 1873, Feb., p. 352, 353). " To this fatal resolution," says Robertson (^History of Scotland), " may be imputed all the subsequent calamities of Mary's life." Many of the Protestant lords who had hitherto supported the queen now took fright lest they should suffer the fate of the adherents of the Protestant religion under Mary of England. The bloody deeds of that foul woman were yet fresh in the minds of all. What was there to hinder Mary Stuart from uprooting heresy in her dominions, with her hands stayed by all the other Romish powers of luirope ? IMoved by such fears, several of the Scotch nobles, whose covetousness had had more to do with their interest in the new religion than their soul's salvation (Fisher, p. 351-353), determined to strike boklly against the throne. Mary, however, was not now the ruler of Scotland. She was only called so. Upoir the throne sat the Italian singer. "\\'hen ISIarj' was married to Darnley she had promised him an equal share in the royal authority, and accordingly the public pa- pers and the public coin were issued in the name of Henry and JMary. But Darnley had not proved the right husband for her, and ere long she manifested her disappointment by placing her name first. Gradually the place lost by the husband is occupied by the Italian adventurer. The public seal is given to Rizzio, and with his own hand he signs and stamps the official pa- pers for the king. There is no access to Mary but through Rizzio: he who would gain the ear of the one must buy the favor of the other. '■ He had the control," says Froude, " of aU the business of the state." The king himself finds the door barred — ^David admitted, himself shut out. Whispers such as no true woman can afford to suffer circulate freely, and Mary suffers th.em ; ugly stories, aptly illustrated by the saying of a later day, that "King James the Sixth's title to be called the modern Solomon was, doubtless, that he was the son of David, who performed upon the harp." History does not justify these scandals. Neither can it justify the queen Mho suffered them. David Eizzio was not a man to entertain passion or to inspire it. His power over Jlary was not that which love gives. It was that of a Jesuit father over an obedient child. To Mary, Rizzio was the pope, whose benediction he carried with him, whose secret envoy he was. But no husband in such an issue is apt to weigh p?'05 and cons nicely, least of all such a man as Darnley. '• Handsome long man" he may have been, but he carried all his merits in his face and figure. Intriguing nobles easily played the part of lago to one who was in heart anything but an Othello. A jealous husband and an imscrupulous nobility were not slow to make common cause ; and so the death of the queen's favorite was determined, and accordingly Rizzio fell a prey to both Darnley and the nobles, March 0. 156(5. The assassins, of course, suffered their merited punishment. High in position and power, they were not given to the hangman, but an ever-watchful Providence meted out to all their merited award. (The charge formerly made by some [c. g. Tytler] that Knox and the Reformed clergy were pri\y to this scheme to mur- der Rizzio has been so thoroughly exploded that it is hardly necessary for us even to allude to it here. Tliose who wish to examine particularly are referred to iM'Crie, Sketches of Scottish Cli. Hist., tim\ Hctheiington, 7//^-^ Ch. of Scotland, i, 124, 402 sq.) It was an aggravation of the murder of Rizzio that it was committed, if not in the queen's presence, at least within a few yards of her person, only three months before she gave birth (June 19, 15G6) to the prince who became king James YI. As that event drew near, the queen's affection for her hus- band, who had unblushingly declaimed against all ]iart in the conspiracy, seemed to revive; but the change
MARY STUART
853
MARY STUART
was only momentary; aiifi before the boy's baptism, in December, her estrangement from the king was greater than ever. Divorce was openly discussed in her pres- ence, and even darker designs were obscurely hinted at among her friends. The king, on his part, spoke of leav- ing the country, but before his preparations were com- pleted, he fell ill of the small-|)ox at Glasgow. This was about Jan. 9, 15G7. On the '2.jth Mary went to see him, and, travelling by easy stages, brought him to Edinburgh on the 31st. He was lodged in a small mansion beside the Kirk of the Field, nearly on the spot where the south-east corner of the University now stands. There Mary visited him daily, and slept for two nights in a room below his bedchamber. She passed the evening of Sunday, Feb. 9, by his bedside, talking cheerfully and affectionately with him, although she is said to have dropped one remark which gave him uneasy forebodings • — that it was much about that time twelvemonth that Rizzio was murdered. She left him between ten and eleven o'clock to take part in a mask at Hoh^rood, at the marriage of a favorite valet. The festivities had not long ceased in the palace when, about two hours after midnight, the house in which the king slept was blown up by gunpowder, and in the neighboring garden was found the lifeless body of him to whom Mary, on the assassination of Eizzio, had spoken these ominous words : " I shall never rest till I give you as sorrowful heart as I have at this present."