upon

Even when she sung, and accompanied herself the lute, Brantome found occasion to discover a new beauty," her soft snowy hand and fingers, fairer than Aurora's. "Ah royaume d'Escosse!" he touchingly adds, " Je croy que, - maintenant, vos jours sont encore bien plus courts qu'ils n'estoient, et vos nuits plus longues, puisque vous avez perdu cette Princesse qui vos illuminoit!" The historian, Castelnau, in like manner, pronounces Mary "the most beautiful and accomplished of her sex ; and Mezeray tells us, that "Nature had bestowed upon her every thing that is necessary to form a complete beauty;" adding, that "by the study of the liberal arts and sciences, especially painting, music, and poetry, she had so embellished her natural good qualities, that she appeared to be the most amiable Princess in Christendom." On the occasion of her marriage, not only were the brains of all the jewellers, embroiderers, and tailors of Paris put in requisition, but a whole host of French poets felt themselves suddenly inspired. Epithalamiums poured in from all quarters, spiced with flattery of all kinds, few of which have been borne down the stream of time so honourably for their author's abilities as that of Buchanan, who, having long struggled with poverty, had at last risen to independence, under the patronage of Cardinal Lorraine. This poem is well known, but is not more complimentary than that of Joachim du Bellay, who, after comparing Mary to Venus, concludes his song with these lines:"Par une chaîne à sa langue attachée Hercule à soi les peuple attiroit; Mais celle ci tire ceux qu'elle voit

Par une chaîne à ses beaux yeux attachée."

Homage, so general, cannot have been entirely misplaced, or very palpably exaggerated.

In Scotland, through the instigation of the Queen Regent, Mary's nuptials, which were far from being agreeable to a numerous party, were celebrated with probably less sincere, and certainly much more homely expressions of pleasure. Orders were sent to the different towns" to make fyres and processions general." Mons-Meg, the celebrated great gun of Edinburgh Castle, was fired once; and there is a charge of ten shillings in the treasurer's accounts of that year paid to certain persons for bringing up the cannon" to be schote, and for the finding and carrying of her bullet after she was schote frae Wardie Muir to the Castel of Edinburgh,"-a distance of about two miles. A play was also enacted, but of what kind it is difficult to say, at the expense of the city of Edinburgh.

3

VOL. I.

MARY THE QUEEN DAUPHINESS, THE QUEEN, AND THE QUEEN DOWAGER OF FRANCE.

SHORTLY after the espousals, Mary and her husband retired to one of their princely summer residences. Here she unostentatiously discharged the duties of a respectful and attentive wife, in a manner which gained for her the admiration of all who visited them. Delightful as society and amusements must at that age have been to her, she readily accommodated herself to the peculiar temper of Francis, and seemed willing, for his sake, to resign all the gaieties of the court.

But the intriguing and restless ambition of her uncles could not allow her to remain long quiet. About this time, Mary Tudor, who had succeeded Edward VI. on the English throne, died; and although the Parliament of that country had declared that the succession rested in her sister Elizabeth, it was thought proper to claim for Mary Stuart a prior right. The ground upon which they built this claim was the following. Henry VIII. married for his first wife Catharine of Arragon, widow of his brother Arthur, and by her he had one child,

Mary. Pretending after having lived with her eighteen years, that his conscience rebuked him for making his brother's wife the partner of his bed, he procured a divorce from Catharine for the purpose of marrying Anne Boleyn, by whom he had also one daughter, Elizabeth. Growing tired of this new wife, she was sent to the scaffold to make way for Jane Seymour, by whom he had one son, Edward. Of this uxorious monarch's other three wives, it is unnecessary to speak. Henry had procured from the British Parliament a solemn act, declaring both his daughters illegitimate, and he left his crown to Edward VI., who accordingly succeeded him. Upon Edward's death, the Parliament, rescinding their former act, in order to save the nation from a civil war, called to the throne Henry's eldest daughter Mary,-not, however, without a protest being entered in behalf of the Scotch Queen by her guardians. Upon Mary's death, the opportunity again occurred of pressing the claims of the daughter of James V. The mother of that king, it will be remembered, who married his father James IV., was the eldest daughter of Henry VII., and sister, consequently, of Henry VIII. Henry was, therefore, Mary's maternal grand-uncle; and if his wives, Catharine and Anne Boleyn, were legally divorced, she had certainly a better right to the English Crown than any of their illegitimate offspring. Soon after the accession, however, of Edward VI., the Parliament, complying with the voice of the whole nation, had declared them legitimate; and as Elizabeth now quietly took possession of the throne, and could hardly by any chance have been dispossessed, it was, to say the least, extremely ill

advised to push Mary forward as a rival claimant.

For various reasons, however, this was the policy which the Guises chose to pursue. Nor did they proceed to assert her right with any particular delicacy or caution. Whenever the Dauphin and his Queen came into public, they were greeted as the King and Queen of England; and the English arms were engraved upon their plate, embroidered upon their scutcheons and banners, and painted on their furniture. * Mary's favourite device, also, at this time, was the two crowns of France and Scotland, with the motto, Aliamque moratur, meaning that of England. The prediction made by the Duke of Alva, on observing this piece of empty parade, was but too fatally fulfilled," That bearing of Mary Stuart's," said he, "will not be easily borne.'

* The coat of arms borne by Francis and Mary is worth describing. The coat was borne Baron and Femme ;The first contained the coat of the Dauphin, which took up the upper half of the shield, and consisted of the arms of France. The lower half was impaled quarterly. In one and four the arms of Scotland, and in two and three those of England. Over the whole was half an escutcheon the sinister half being obscured or cut off, to denote that the English crown was in the possession of another, to the bearer's prejudice. Under the arms were four lines in French, thus wretchedly translated by Strype, in his "Annals of Queen Elizabeth.

"The arms of Mary Queen Dauphiness of France, The noblest lady in earth for till advance, Of Scotland Queen and of England, also Of France, as God hath providet it so. Keith, p. 114. Chalmers, vol. 2d, p. 413. (probably a copy) containing these arms, and the above motto, is preserved in Mary's apartments at Holyroodhouse.

A painting