The visions of England :: :: University of Virginia Library

Blow from the North, thou bitter North wind,
Blow over the western bay,
Where Nith and Eden and Esk run in
And fight with the salt sea spray,
And the sun shines high through the sailing sky
In the freshness of blue Mid-may.

Blow North-North-West, and hollow the sails
Of a Queen who slips over the sea
As a hare from the hounds; and her covert afar;
And now she can only flee;
And death before and the sisterly shore
That smiles perfidiously.

O Mid-may freshness about her cheek
And piercing her poor attire,
The sting of defeat thou canst not allay,
The fever of heart and the fire,
The death-despair for the days that were,
And famine of vain desire!

—On Holyrood stairs

Riccio was murdered on March 9, 1566. Mary's exclamation when she heard of his death next day, No more tears; I will think upon a revenge, is the sufficient explanation,—in a great degree should be the sufficient justification, with those who still hold her an accomplice in the death of Darnley and the marriage with Bothwell,—(considering the then lawless state of Scotland, the complicity of the leading nobles, the hopelessness of justice)—of her later conduct whilst Queen.

an iron-heel'd clank
Came up in the gloaming hour:
And iron fingers have bursten the bar
Of the palace innermost bower:
And fiend-like on her the Douglas and Ker
And spectral Ruthven glower.

She hears the shriek as the Morton horde
Hurry the victim beneath;
And she feels their dead man's grasp on her skirt
In the frenzy-terror of death;
And the dastard King at her bosom cling
With a serpent's poison-breath.

O fair girl Queen, well weep for the friend

In Riccio's murder the main determinant was his efficiency in aiding Mary towards a Roman Catholic reaction, which might have deprived a large body of powerful nobles of the church lands. The death of Riccio (Mary's most faithful friend) prevented this: the death of Darnley became necessary to secure the position gained.

To his faith too faithful and thee;
For a brother's hypocrite tears;

Murray, in whose interest Riccio was murdered, and whose privity to the murder (as afterwards to that of Darnley) is reasonably, though indirectly, proved, affected to shed tears on seeing his sister. Next day she learned the details of the plot, and her half-brother's share in it.

for the flight

Mary then fled by a secret passage from Holyrood Palace through the Abbey Church, the royal tombs in which had been broken open by the revolutionary mob of 1559.

To the Castle

Dunbar.

set by the sea;—
Where thy father's tomb lay and gaped in the gloom
'Twere better for thee to be!

O better at rest where the crooning dove
May sing requiem o'er thy bed,
Sweet Robin aflame with love's sign on his breast
With quick light footstep tread;
While over the sod the Birds of God
Their guardian feathers outspread!

Too womanly sweet, too womanly frail,
Alone in thy faith and thy need;
In the homeless home, in the poisonous air
Of spite and libel and greed;
Mid perfidy's net thy pathway is set,
And thy feet in the pitfalls bleed.

—O lightnings, not lightnings of Heaven, that flare
Through the desolate House in the Field!
Craft that the Fiend had envied in vain;
Till the terrible Day unreveal'd,—

Much of course is and will probably remain unknown among the details of that fatal and fascinating drama, Mary's life. But all hitherto ascertained evidence has now, mainly by Mr. Hosack, been sifted so closely and so ably that the main turning points in her career seem to have reached that twilight certainty beyond which History can rarely hope to go, and are placed beyond the reach of reasonable controversy. Such, (not to enter upon the Queen's life as Elizabeth's captive), is the more than Macchiavellian —the almost incredible—perfidy of the leading Scottish politicians, united with a hypocrisy more revolting still, and enabled to do its wicked work, (with regret we must confess), by the shortsighted bigotry of Knox:—The gradual forgery of the letters by which the Queen's death was finally obtained from the too-willing hands of Elizabeth's Cabinet:—The all but legally proved innocence of Mary in regard to Darnley's death, and the Bothwell marriage. Taking her life as a whole, it may be fairly doubted whether any woman has ever been exposed to trials and temptations more severe, or has suffered more shamefully from false witness and fanatical hatred. But the prejudices which have been hence aroused are so strong, such great interests, religious and political, are involved in their maintenance, that they will doubtless prevail in the popular mind until our literature receives, —what an age of research and of the scientific spirit should at last be prepared to give us,—a tolerably truthful history of the Elizabethan period. (1889)

Till the Angels rejoice at the Verdict-voice,
And Mary's pardon is seal'd!

As a bird from the mesh of the fowler freed
With wild wing shatters the air,
From shelter to shelter, betray'd, she flees,
Or lured to some treacherous lair,
And the vulture-cry of the enemy nigh,
And the heavens thick with despair!

Bright lily of France, by the storm stricken low,
A sunbeam thou seest through the shade
Where Order and Peace are throned 'neath the smile
Of a royal sisterly Maid:—

For hope in the breast of the girl has her nest,
Ever trusting, and ever betray'd.

Brave womanly heart that, beholding the shore,
Beholds her own grave unaware,—
Though the days to come their shame should unveil
Yet onward she still would dare!
Though the meadows smile with statesmanly guile,
And the cuckoo's call is a snare!

Turn aside, O Queen, from the cruel land,
From the greedy shore turn away;
From shame upon shame:—But most shame for those
On their passionate captive who play
With a subtle net, hope enwoven with threat,
Hung out to tempt her astray!

Poor scape-goat of crimes, where,—her part what it may,—
So tortured, so hunted to die,
Foul age of deceit and of hate,—on her head
Least stains of gore-guiltiness lie;
To the hearts of the just her blood from the dust
Not in vain for mercy will cry.

Poor scape-goat of nations and faiths in their strife
So cruel,—and thou so fair!
Poor girl!—so, best, in her misery named,—
Discrown'd of two kingdoms, and bare;
Not first nor last on this one was cast
The burden that others should share

—When the race is convened at the great assize
And the last long trumpet-call,
If Woman 'gainst Man, in her just appeal,
At the feet of the Judge should fall,
O the cause were secure;—the sentence sure!
—But she will forgive him all!—

O keen heart-hunger for days that were;
Last look at a vanishing shore!
In two short words all bitterness summ'd,
That Has been and Nevermore!
Nor with one caress will Mary bless,
Nor look on the babe she bore!

Blow, bitter wind, with a cry of death,
Blow over the western bay:
The sunshine is gone from the desolate girl,
And before is the doomster-day,
And the saw-dust red with the heart's-blood shed
In the shambles of Fotheringay.

Mary of Scotland is one of the five or six figures in our history who rouse an undying personal interest. Volumes have been and will be written on her:—yet if we put aside the distorting mists of national and political and theological partisanship, the common laws of human nature will give an easy clue to her conduct and that of her enemies.

Her flight from Scotland, as the turning-point in Mary's unhappy and pathetic career, has been here chosen for the moment whence to survey it.