 | CHATELARD. The book of my lady |  |
CHATELARD.
The account which history gives us of this daring
and unhappy adventurer, is of as much interest and
quite as sadly romantic as that of Rizzio—who, with
far less pretension, suffered martyrdom for a like error.
The first notice we have of Chatelard places him on
board the vessel which bore Mary of Scotland to her
unstable empire. The events of that voyage need here
no recital. We are told by the historians, who have dwelt
upon this particular in the fortunes of Mary with far more
precision than distinguishes their narrative throughout,
that, with a measure of grief, which, to most persons,
would appear highly exaggerated and artificial, “La
Reine Blanche,”—as, from her white mourning, the
French had at that time designated her—took her departure
from the shores of that fair country, in which her
education had been acquired, and which her heart could
never, at any period in her life, entirely leave. Nor
was this feeling at all abated by the other circumstances
attending her departure. Various and striking were
the omens of ill which marked her sailing, and filled
her melancholy spirit with apprehensions not unwarranted
by the result; and when advised of the English
fleet sent by her bitter enemy and rival, Elizabeth, to
intercept her, not even the pledges of true faith from
her gallant but small retinue, could materially diminish
a thousand exclamations of “farewell!” she kept
looking back upon the land which her eyes were so
rapidly losing. The strains of the young Chatelard,
served up to her senses with a spirit of corresponding
tone with hers, soothed, however, the gloomy temper
of the princess, and possibly prevented those wild and
violent paroxysms, which usually mark the more extravagant
sorrows of the sex. In nature's exhaustion at
last, weeping herself to slumber, she sunk down upon
the couch prepared for her upon the deck of her vessel;
while, with a spirit more and more enamoured from the
subject of his contemplation, the daring boy who sung
above her, filled with hopes as delightful as they were
illusory, fell into dreams not less cheering than those
of his mistress were sorrowful.
The dawn of the morning found them in the most
perilous situation. They were surrounded by the English
fleet, and no possible chances appeared for their
escape. In that hour the devotion of those about the
beleaguered princess was finely tried; and none were
more ready in their willingness to die in her defence,
than the young and accomplished poet. Indeed, as the
nephew of the celebrated Bayard, the knight, sans peur,
sans reproche—educated in France, skilled in arts,
arms, and the required duties of a court the most refined
of Europe—less than devotion to death, and firmness
amidst torture, could not have been expected
from the youth. His eyes flashed defiance as the tall
masts of the approaching and overwhelming force loomed
out upon the horizon; and, throwing aside the harp,
to the strains of which through the night his fine voice
drew his sword, and bending on his knee to his queen,
proffered it in gallant language, and begged to use it
in her service. Mary smiled through her tears upon
the boy, and, with a compliment which came with added
sweetness from her lips, gave him permission—a permission
which made him happy—to die in her defence.
But the watchful Providence had them in charge, and
at the moment of their discovery, a thick fog overspread
the seas. A bold hand was upon the helm, and guided
unwavering and silently on their course, they escaped,
by passing through the gathering prows of their enemy.
Chatelard was a favourite, and had the power of
maintaining that ground in the estimation of the queen
which his many accomplishments and warm devotion to
her service had long before won. Amidst opposing
claims he suffered nothing from rivalship, and while
other courtiers were exposed to the alternations of a
cloudy day, all was sunshine and smiles for him. A
poetess herself, Mary delighted in all those professing the
gay science; and though we have no remains of Chatelard
by which his pretensions might be estimated, it
appears, from her regard, that his claims were at once
agreeable and peculiar. He wrote in all living languages.
He read with a voice and manner that improved
what he read. He was ready and fluent in
composition, and her smiles so encouraged him, that,
at length, she herself became his muse, and he learned
in a little time to forget all others. Nor was his daring
unsanctioned by the circumstances attending it. She
seemed, perhaps unconsciously, to encourage his madness.
She replied to his verses in a strain equally
existence in the feelings of the man. Accustomed to
every species of adulation, the tender verses of Chatelard
did not offend the young princess; and she smiled
at his more extravagant flights, as at the flatteries peculiar
to, and pardonable in, the poet. But her condescension
was fatal to the lover. “Her smiles tempted
him,” says Brantome, “to aspire, like Phaeton, at ascending
the chariot of the sun.” He grew mad in his
hope, and thinking of little beside, and caring for nothing
else, the youth had no life but in the wild love
which he entertained for his sovereign.
It was at the close of one of those evenings which
Mary, freeing herself from the council and the counsellors
alike, usually reserved to herself, her “four Maries,”
and such other of her household, as were classed with
her especial favourites—that Chatelard, while performing
to the queen, had drunk in his richest draughts of
delicious enjoyment. Though always gentle and indulgent,
she had been to the young poet, on this occasion,
particularly so; and there was that in his heart which
could not and would not be controlled. He had just
sung the words of a new poem, in which, as usual, her
praises had been embodied; the conceits of which, borrowed
in part from the Italian, had won largely of her
admiration. The “four Maries,” not so fond as their
mistress of the divine art, had, one by one, fallen into
that species of torpor, which, if not sleep, is wonderfully
like it, and which is not unusual to those kept long
in attendance upon a superior. The queen had not
ceased in her admiration, when the fertile genius of the
poet suggested a still richer conceit which his lips had
acknowledgement from the gratified and royal listener.
She, at length, roused by his inspiration, catching a
portion of its influence, struck the harp which she bade
him place beside her, and sung, with great tenderness
and much effect, a little response to his strains, in which,
with a like conceit, she requited him.
The words were those of love, of deep feeling,
and though most probably they were dictated only in
that spirit of compliment and gallantry which distinguished
the age, in that country in which both of them
had been educated, the adventurous poet regarded them
as reciprocating in every essential the mad passion of
his own spirit. Falling upon his knee, therefore, he
seized her hand, and fervently carrying it to his lips,
perceived with renewed delight that she did not rebuke
him—that she allowed him to retain it for a second, and
only did not permit a repetition of his offence. He
spoke to her with a soul which infused itself into every
syllable which gathered upon his lips. What he said,
he, himself, knew not. His heart was wild, and all his
senses in rebellion against his reason. He breathed
forth the adoration which he felt, and only offended
when, in the simplicity of his spirit, he dared to hope.
The queen rose, and for a moment she spoke not.
There was something of a sweet confusion in her eye,
which gave a moment's encouragement to the rash and
enamoured minstrel. It is not impossible, indeed,
that young, ardent, gentle, highly intellectual, having
a spirit attuned like his who addressed her, to the high
converse of the muse, and warmed to corresponding
sympathies, the pretension of the bard had been far
it might have appeared. Her manner was
not stern, though grave; and her accents, though not
encouraging, were neither severe nor frigid. Looking
around upon her attendants, who had, without
much difficulty, worked themselves into the profoundest
sleep—with resumed calmness she spoke to the
still kneeling and still entreating youth. His fine
and graceful figure—his wild, penetrating, and impassioned
eye—the free and bold gesture of his action—
the eloquence of his language—the warmth of his
love—were all so many advocates, not merely for
forgiveness, but for a corresponding love. That, in a
less elevated station, Mary of Scotland might have
nourished the flame she had enkindled, may not so
well be denied, and is far from improbable. But she
was a woman of strong good sense—a moment's reflection
convinced her of the madness of any thought
on the subject, and pitying the youth, with a gentleness
of spirit not unwarmed by a due estimate, and a
proper admiration of his pretensions, she found it
necessary to silence them.
“This must not be, Chatelard—this must not be.
You forget yourself—you forget me, and presume
upon that favour, already a subject of complaint in my
court, which I have been fain, and it seems foolish,
to bestow upon you. What take you me for, young
man? Think you I am a child, and would you teach
me to forget the vast difference and distance between
us, as you yourself have forgotten it? Be advised in
time, ere the lesson comes too harshly and from another
indulgent to you now.”
“There can be no sterner tutor to my heart, sweet
sovereign,” was the unhesitating response of the poet,
“than your own brow thus frowning upon me; and
the only death which I dare not encounter is that
which comes with your anger. Say then, that you
forgive me—that you grow not again wroth with me,
or I care not to leave this spot, though now so gloomy
with your frown. I am ready to perish here, and now
—now, at your feet.”
“The vain flattery of your speech does not blind
me, Chatelard, to the presumption of your spirit; but
I forgive and pity your delusion, believing as I do,
that you do not feign, and seek not dishonestly to
practise upon me. Still, this kind of language must
be forborne. You must not be permitted to indulge
in thoughts so far above your condition, and so injurious
to mine. You should remember that I am the
sovereign, to whom your allegiance is due, not the
fellow subject, with whose fortunes your own might
couple, and suffer neither rebuke nor contamination.
“And, are you less my sovereign, sweet princess,
because I love as well as obey? Does the passion
which now speaks in my spirit, and warms it into devotion
for thine, make me lose sight of the homage
which it thus doubly secures to thee? I know you for
my queen—one graciously forgiving for my faults—
one too indulgent to my merits. But not merely as
my sovereign do I know you. It is not as the painted
authority alone, whom the voice of a people, or the
rights of inheritance, have invested with power, that
Stuart. It is not the bauble of sovereignty and vain
sway which I have adored—it is not these which have
dazzled my eyes and misled my spirit. I have not
been won away from my homage by such as these;
and I regarded you, my princess, as too far above the
sex to which you by nature belong, to have much regarded
them yourself. I know that you esteem not
royalty as the silly crowd who gather in its blaze. I
have not watched and lingered when all were gone,
and loved devotedly when all were hollow and insincere,
to doubt that your soul was as much above the
vain trappings of your state, as mine that dared, and
still dares, to despise them. And how shall we regard
those toys of human arrangement which make the free
spirit a reined and fettered thing, and would enslave
and bind affections and high passions, according to
chartered limits? I have not cared—I shall not care
for such restraints, and well I am assured that you are
beyond their dictation and control. If you are not—
if, with that frailty, which the familiar speech of old
time, hath laid to your sex, you have deceived me in
this,—I have, indeed, and deeply, offended. But I
will not thus imagine, I dare not think, my princess,
that a spirit, so finely wrought as yours, can find a
difference in the state with which human laws hedge
around authority, giving it superiority over a mind
and affections, having no consciousness of aught by
which it might suffer in a comparison with authority
of the highest.”
“And granting, young man, that I thought as you
suppose. Granting, that in my mind, there was nothing
from bestowing herself on the meanest of her subjects
who had found favour in her sight—by what art come
you to know that such an one are you? What divination
provides you with this goodly assurance? Why
hast thou taken, it for true, that, having such a free
doctrine as that thou hast so plainly imagined, I have
chosen to illustrate it to my subjects, with your aid in
especial?”
The mortification of the poet he did not seek to suppress.
As the queen spoke, the colour came and
went on his cheeks, and as his words were uttered in
reply, they fell from his lips tremulously and only
with great effort.
“Sharply, my sovereign, have you rebuked my folly,
but my pride in this suffers far less than the poor
heart in which it abides. It has been my thought,
that there were some spirits as sovereign by nature as
they were so by human creation; and my further
thought has been, that such a spirit was thine. Nor
can I yet think otherwise, though thou hast chosen to
reprove me for my wild love, not as it offends thy own
nature, but as it ill accords with the wonted usage of
that vain state with which the pageantry of ancient
folly has girt thee in. I love thee not less, however,
even now, hopeless as thou hast declared my passion
to be, and all humbled as thou hast endeavoured to
make that pride, which, till this hour—assured as it has
been of no semblance of aught that was not high and
honourable—was never humbled before man—nor,
whatever be my fate, can I cease to make the same
bold, and, as it appears to thee, most audacious and
have from heaven, to its own violation, because of
any earthly dictation. If it be criminal to love thee, I
am thus criminal; and fear me, if I know myself rightly,
that each future hour of my life, will somewhat
increase the crime for which the heavy penalty of
your stern frown and bitter speech is now gathering
in its reproof.”
“You are bold, Chatelord—over bold, to your
queen, and, but that I deem you the honest subject
that you have always appeared, and now avow yourself,
I should be something more than offended. I
forgive you this boldness, and think not when I warn
you to greater prudence, and chide you for the forwardness
of present speech, that I overlook and am
insensible to those gifts of nature and of art which so
present themselves in you, and make you, as I have
often said and thought, one of the fairest gentlemen
of my court. I am well delighted with your skill in
the divine art of poetry, and would be loth to lose
that sweet minstrelsy which hath soothed so many of
my saddest hours, and which thy skill so cunningly
awakens. But thou must be chary of thy speech and
thoughts in this foolish matter of which thou hast
permitted thy lips to prattle something too freely.
Thou hast marked the jealous scrutiny of those, who,
calling themselves my subjects, are yet my sovereigns,
and whom I dare not offend. Thou hast seen for thyself
the malignant spirit with which this gross zealot,
whom they call Knox, inveterately watches over and
vapours at all that concerns me. Pursue not, therefore,
this madness, for, whatever my woman heart
less,—and be as thou hast heretofore been, and I have
been glad to see thee, the noble friend rather than
subject, and make me not less, by thy future bearing,
than thine, as I would be.”
The manner of the queen was even more gentle
than her words, but the parental character of both was
thrown away upon the infatuated youth. He was mad
enough to conceive this speech a full sanction for,
rather than rebuke of, his passion; and under an impulse,
the consequence of that unregulated play of the
passions which had him for some time before in mastery,
he dared to embrace the now terrified and
retreating Mary, while imprinting a fervent kiss upon
her lips. The maids of honour, awakened at her
cries, came to her rescue. The queen retired to her
chamber, and Chatelard was about to leave the little
ante-room in which this scene had taken place, when
a strong arm was laid upon his shoulder, and the Regent
Murray stood before him. The poet was as
fearless in strife as he was daring in love, but resistance
was hopeless. A score of serving men were at
the back of the earl, by whom he was immediately
taken into custody, and that very night committed to
a close prison.
The trial of Chatelard, by the proper legal authorities,
followed in due and rapid course under the
direction of the regal council. The great favour
which the poet had enjoyed, had procured for him not
a few enemies; and the jealous hate of Murray, against
all and every thing that stood for an instant between
himself and the supreme rule, which he always desired,
this occasion, to the active measures which were
adopted. The trial was had, and the misguided youth
was condemned to death. The gentle spirit of Mary
revolted when this sentence was delivered. She laboured,
though vainly, for its commutation; and the
stern temper of that stern people, or many among
them, over whom she reigned, set down that interest
and sympathy, which she now exhibited, to the worst
of all criminal attachments. As, with tears in her
eyes, and an eloquence not often surpassed even
among men, she rose in the council, if possible, to affect
the decision by her own entreaties, and the
unhesitating forgiveness which she offered to the captive,
the rigid reformer, Knox, throwing aside all
sense of propriety, presumed to insinuate a guilty
interest in her prayer which did not exist, and never
had existed. It was then, that—as the queen, disdaining
all reply, sunk back pained and exhausted upon
the cushions from which she had risen—the victim,
for the first time, rose to address the council.
“I do not speak,” said he, “that I may not perish.
I am guilty of all that you allege, and, since I may
not dare to live, why should I scruple to die? I have
no fears of death, and, at this moment, but little love
of life. But for that malignant slanderer, who, not
daring to speak out his malice, yet meanly leaves it to
the sense of conjecture,—I would speak to his shame.
It is false as he affirms it. I am the criminal in this
—the only criminal—if it be a crime to love, and with
adoration, not less warmly, though perhaps less acceptably
offered, than that which I have entertained for
“let me, oh, most beautiful and well beloved princess,
do this poor atonement for my offence to you. It is
but meagre justice to your heavenly innocence, that I
say to this people who now sit over me in justice, that
my rash passion was no less ungracious in your eyes
than it has proved criminal in theirs. This, indeed,
is my sorrow—since the chains with which they have
loaded these once free and undishonoured limbs, and
the insolent speech and suspicion which they have
poured within these ears that had hitherto refused to
hearken to any sounds that were not noble and sweet
—and the ignominious death which is in reserve for
me—would have all been as nothing—ay, would have
been sought for earnestly and anxiously, as a rich boon
and blessing, so that thou hadst felt some of that wild
passion in thy breast which thou hast so fatally awakened
in mine.”
With a refinement of cruelty, which seems to have
attended Mary through life, she was compelled to sit
in a latticed chamber overlooking the place of the
poet's execution. This measure was deemed necessary,
in order the more fully to exonerate her from the
suspicion urged by her enemies, that, having first
tempted, she had afterwards betrayed, the criminal.
It was thought necessary that she should seem to
rejoice in his just punishment. The unfortunate
youth was brought to execution on the 22d February,
1653. His conduct on the altar of death and degradation,
was marked by the most enthusiastic bravery.
He rejected the aid of the confessor; and, having first
read aloud Ronsard's celebrated hymn on death, he
the outline of the queen's form might be seen imperfectly,
and after a moment's pause exclaiming, “Farewell,
loveliest and most cruel princess that the world
contains”—knelt firmly and gracefully down before
the block. A single shriek from the window announced
the moment of execution; and the queen fell into a
swooning fit, as the dismembered head rolled from the
gory trunk along the scaffold.
| CHATELARD. The book of my lady | |