The Abbot

Prince thereof, as much as if we had been removed by disease, and not by our own proper act. And that this demission of our royal authority may have the more full and solemn effect, and none pretend ignorance, we give, grant, and commit, fall and free and plain power to our trusty cousins, Lord Lindesay of the Byres, and William Lord Ruthven, to appear in our name before as many of the nobility, clergy, and burgesses, as may be assembled at Stirling, and there, in our name and behalf, publicly, and in their presence, to renounce the Crown, guidance, and government of this our kingdom of Scotland.'

The Queen here broke in with an air of extreme surprise. 'How is this, my lords?' she said: 'Are my ears turned rebels, that they deceive me with sounds so extraordinary??And yet it is no wonder that, having conversed so long with rebellion, they should now force its language upon my understanding. Say I am mistaken, my lords?say, for the honour of yourselves and the Scottish nobility, that my right trusty cousins of Lindesay and Ruthven, two barons of warlike fame and ancient line, have not sought the prison-house of their kind mistress for such a purpose as these words seem to imply. Say, for the sake of honour and loyalty, that my ears have deceived me.'

'No, madam,' said Ruthven gravely, 'your ears do not deceive you?they deceived you when they were closed against the preachers of the evangele, and the honest advice of your faithful subjects; and when they were ever open to flattery of pickthanks and traitors, foreign cubiculars and domestic minions. The land may no longer brook the rule of one who cannot rule herself; wherefore, I pray you to comply with the last remaining wish of your subjects and counsellors, and spare yourself and us the farther agitation of matter so painful.'

'And is this all my loving subjects require of me, my lord?' said Mary, in a tone of bitter irony. 'Do they really stint themselves to the easy boon that I should yield up the crown, which is mine by birthright, to an infant which is scarcely more than a year old?fling down my sceptre, and take up a distaff?Oh no! it is too little for them to ask?That other roll of parchment contains something harder to be complied with, and which may more highly task my readiness to comply with the petitions of my lieges.'

'This parchment,' answered Ruthven, in the same tone of inflexible gravity, and unfolding the instrument as he spoke, 'is one by which your grace constitutes your nearest in blood, and the most honourable and trustworthy of your subjects, James, Earl of Murray, Regent of the kingdom during the minority of the young King. He already holds the appointment from the Secret Council.'

The Queen gave a sort of shriek, and, clapping her hands together, exclaimed, 'Comes the arrow out of his quiver??out of my brother's bow??Alas! I looked for his return from France as my sole, at least my readiest, chance of deliverance.?And yet, when I heard he had assumed the government, I guessed he would shame to wield it in my name.'

'I must pray your answer, madam,' said Lord Ruthven, 'to the demand of the Council.'

'The demand of the Council!' said the Queen; 'say rather the demand of a set of robbers, impatient to divide the spoil they have seized. To such a demand, and sent by the mouth of a traitor, whose scalp, but for my womanish mercy, should long since have stood on the city gates, Mary of Scotland has no answer.'

'I trust, madam,' said Lord Ruthven, 'my being unacceptable to your presence will not add to your obduracy of resolution. It may become you to remember that the death of the minion, Rizzio, cost the house of Ruthven its head and leader. My father, more worthy than a whole province of such vile sycophants, died in exile, and broken-hearted.'

The Queen clasped her hands on her face, and, resting her arms on the table, stooped down her head and wept so bitterly, that the tears were seen to find their way in streams between the white and slender fingers with which she endeavoured to conceal them.

'My lords,' said Sir Robert Melville, 'this is too much rigour. Under your lordship's favour, we came hither, not to revive old griefs, but to find the mode of avoiding new ones.'

'Sir Robert Melville,' said Ruthven, 'we best know for what purpose we were delegated hither, and wherefore you were somewhat unnecessarily sent to attend us.'

'Nay, by my hand,' said Lord Lindesay, 'I know not why we were cumbered with the good knight, unless he comes in place of the lump of sugar which pothicars put into their wholesome but bitter medicaments, to please a froward child?a needless labour, methinks, where men have the means to make them swallow the physic otherwise.'

'Nay, my lords,' said Melville, 'ye best know your own secret instructions. I conceive I shall best obey mine in striving to mediate between her Grace and you.'

'Be silent, Sir Robert Melville,' said the Queen, arising, and her face still glowing with agitation as she spoke. 'My kerchief, Fleming?I shame that traitors should have power to move me thus.?Tell me, proud lords,' she added, wiping away the tears as she spoke, 'by what earthly warrant can liege subjects pretend to challenge the rights of an anointed Sovereign?to throw off the allegiance they have vowed, and to take away the crown from the head on which Divine warrant hath placed it?'

'Madam,' said Ruthven, 'I will deal plainly with you. Your reign, from the dismal field of Pinkie-cleugh, when you were a babe in the cradle, till now that ye stand a grown dame before us, hath been such a tragedy of losses, disasters, civil dissensions, and foreign wars, that the like is not to be found in our chronicles. The French and English have, with one consent, made Scotland the battle-field on which to fight out their own ancient quarrel.?For ourselves every man's hand hath been against his brother, nor hath a year passed over without rebellion and slaughter, exile of nobles, and oppressing of the commons. We may endure it no longer, and therefore, as a prince, to whom God hath refused the gift of hearkening to wise counsel, and on whose dealings and projects no blessing hath ever descended, we pray you to give way to other rule and governance of the land, that a remnant may yet be saved to this distracted realm.'

'My lord,' said Mary, 'it seems to me that you fling on my unhappy and devoted head those evils, which, with far more justice, I may impute to your own turbulent, wild, and untameable dispositions?the frantic violence with which you, the Magnates of Scotland, enter into feuds against each other, sticking at no cruelty to gratify your wrath, taking deep revenge for the slightest offences, and setting at defiance those wise laws which your ancestors made for stanching of such cruelty, rebelling against the lawful authority, and bearing yourselves as if there were no king in the land; or rather as if each were king in his own premises. And now you throw the blame on me?on me, whose life has been embittered?whose sleep has been broken?whose happiness has been wrecked by your dissensions. Have I not myself been obliged to traverse wilds and mountains, at the head of a few faithful followers, to maintain peace and put down oppression? Have I not worn harness on my person, and carried pistols at my saddle; fain to lay aside the softness of a woman, and the dignity of a Queen, that I might show an example to my followers?'

'We grant, madam,' said Lindesay, 'that the affrays occasioned by your misgovernment, may sometimes have startled you in the midst of a masque or galliard; or it may be that such may have interrupted the idolatry of the mass, or the jesuitical counsels of some French ambassador. But the longest and severest journey which your Grace has taken in my memory, was from Hawick to Hermitage Castle; and whether it was for the weal of the