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3. "That every one who should, after the forty days limited, receive, relieve, comfort, or maintain any such jesuit, missionary or other priest, knowing him to be such, shall be adjudged a “felon, and suffer death without benefit of clergy: 4. That, if any subject, not being a jesuit, "missionary or other priest, brought up in any college of jesuits, or in any seminary in foreign parts, should not, within six months after pro"clamation made in the city of London, return "and submit to her majesty and her laws, and "take the oath prescribed by the act of the first

year of her majesty, or should otherwise return "without submission, he should suffer as in the case of high treason:

- 5. “That if any person should send or give " any money or relief to any jesuit, missionary or "other priest, or to any college of jesuits, or to any

seminary, or to any person in the same, or to any "one returned thence without submission, every person so offending should incur the danger and "penalty of præmunire:

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6. "And that every person who, after the forty days, should know of any jesuit, seminary or “other priest, that did abide in the realm, and "should not discover the same to some justice of "the peace, or other higher officers, within twelve days after knowledge, he should be fined and "imprisoned at the queen's pleasure."

It is observable that this act must have been purposely so worded, as not to comprehend the old priests, or queen Mary's priests, as they were

called, as it extended to those only who had been ordained after the feast of St. John Baptist, in the .first year of her majesty's reign, and to those who received or maintained the priests so ordained. This was a part of the policy of the queen and her ministers. To avoid the imputation of an excess of severity, they always alleged that they did not meddle with the ancient catholic clergy, or those to whom they administered the rites of religion or religious instruction; and that the whole penal code was levelled against the new priests; and this, not for their religion, but because their principles, (which principles they carefully instilled into all who frequented them), were not only hostile to the protestant religion, but dangerous to her majesty's person, and subversive of her government*.

XXXII. 8.

* Remarks on the supposed Participation of Mary of Scotland in the Murder of Lord Darnley, and Babington's

Plot.

IT was the wish of the writer to obtain a clear view of the controversy on the participation of Mary of Scotland in the murder of lord Darnley, and in Babington's plot, and to state the result to

See chap. XXXVII. "Samuel Johnson, (I mean the divine) gives an odd justification of these laws, by saying, that the "priests are hanged, not as priests, but as traitors. But, as "their being priests was the sole reason for their being traitors, "it does not appear that the protestant divine can avail him"self of that distinction." Sir Walter Scott's edition of Dryden's work, vol. i. p. 257, n. xiv.

his readers. With this design, he perused all that Hume, Robertson, Laing, Tytler, Whitaker, and Chalmers, have said upon the subject. He then perceived, that, to form a proper judgment on this singularly interesting and singularly perplexed case, an attentive perusal of earlier documents, more numerous and more bulky than his time for literary pursuits allows him to investigate, was absolutely necessary, and that a minute examination of the famous letters, for which his ignorance of the Scottish language absolutely disqualifies him, could not be dispensed with. He therefore abandoned the inquiry,—but having paid considerable attention to the questions, he begs leave to state some circumstances, which appear to him favourable, and some, which appear to him unfavourable, to the cause of the unfortunate queen.

I. On her participation in the murder of Darnley, it may be said, in her favour, that, abstractedly from this alleged crime and the circumstances immediately connected with it, her character is uniformly amiable, and generally respectable. She appears to have been good natured, good humoured, and to have desired to see every person around her cheerful and happy. Vindictiveness and cruelty may be said to have been perfectly strangers to her; she possessed great good sense, and firmness of soul; but she was too easily a prey to the artful; too easily confided in professions of attachment, and too willingly indulged in the aspirations of love.

All must confess, that she was surrounded by

designing, unprincipled, and remorseless adversaries, and scarcely had a friend; that her virtues therefore would be obscurated, her failings exaggerated.

To Elizabeth, it is impossible to deny great talents, great strength ofmind, great intrepidity, and inflexible steadiness of purpose; or not to admit that she was selfish, envious, malicious, and vindictive; that the happiness of others, except so far as she herself was interested in it, was indifferent to her; and that her jealousy of the connubial joys of others, and her prevention of them, when this was in her power, were singularly, hateful. Every part of the history of her reign shows, that, to accomplish any object, particularly the ruin of a powerful enemy, there was no wickedness to which she would not resort, no perfidy, no artifice, of which she was not capable, and that, both in England and Scotland, her ministers and subordinate agents co-operated in all her designs, without any compunctious feelings, beyond a regard to their own safety, and became active instruments for carrying them into execution.

It must be added, that throughout the conflict between Mary and Elizabeth, and during more than a century afterwards, the presses both of Scotland and England were wholly at the command of Elizabeth and the favourers of her cause.

This general view of the case raises legitimate prejudices in favour of Mary and against Elizabeth. The former is increased by this circumstance, that, though the whole power both of the

English and the Scottish governments was, at that time, in the possession of Mary's enemies,-and though, immediately after the murder of Darnley, they became masters of the persons of many, who had been actively engaged in the perpetration of that crime, yet none of them criminated Mary; nor is a single authentic fact, of the nature of positive evidence, brought against her.

II. On the other hand, the marriage of Mary with Bothwell so soon after the murder of Darnley, -particularly on account of the general suspicion of his having contrived and participated in it, and of the two rapid divorces which accompanied it, raise a strong legitimate prejudice against her.

But we must make great allowance for the effect, which the bond of the nobles, recommending this marriage to Mary,-which Hume justly calls a reproach to the nation,-must have had on her mind; and for the extreme need in which she stood of the marital support of a powerful, active, and attached nobleman. Such she expected, and certainly had some reason to expect, in Bothwell. Two other circumstances may be thought to raise a reasonable prejudice against her.

1. She does not explicitly deny her guilt, either at the time of her execution, or in her letter to Elizabeth. Can this be otherwise accounted for, than by her unwillingness to plunge into eternity with an untruth on her lips? She appears to have died in great sentiments of religion, and consequently with a fear of the eternal fires, which, under this impression, she must have believed would