by a series of unprincipled intrigues and artifices Mary was induced to submit her cause to the arbitration of her crafty rival; and the Scottish regent, in compliance with the summons of Elizabeth, but with undisguised reluctance, brought forward his charges against his sister before a commission which was held first at York and afterwards at Hampton Court, and attempted to substantiate them by letters addressed to Bothwell, which he affirmed to be in the handwriting of Mary, and conclusive, as he contended, of her guilt. It is admitted by the friends of the queen that though she denounced these letters as forgeries, some of the steps taken by her are suspicious or inexplicable; and indeed it is difficult, if not impossible, to reconcile her conduct throughout these proceedings with the belief of her entire innocence of the charges brought against her. Elizabeth repeatedly proposed that Mary should abdicate her throne; but this she peremptorily refused to do. In the end, after an investigation which lasted five mouths, the conference terminated without any definite decision in favour of either party; and the only result was to afford the English queen a pretext for keeping her unfortunate rival in captivity. In the following year, 1569, an intrigue was entered into by many influential English nobles for the restoration of the Scottish queen to liberty, and her marriage to the duke of Norfolk, which ultimately brought that nobleman to the block, and greatly increased the jealousy of Elizabeth and the rigour of Mary's captivity. The remainder of her long imprisoment in England was little else than a succession of abortive intrigues for the recovery of her freedom and her crown, exciting the hopes of the unhappy princess only to blast them. Her party in Scotland was in the end completely crushed by Regent Morton; and the surrender of Edinburgh castle, together with the death of Kirkaldy of Grange and Maitland of Lethington, terminated the struggle of her partisans to replace her upon the throne. It soon became evident that her existence, even though a captive, was a source of danger to the security of Elizabeth's throne and the tranquillity of the country. The Roman catholic party regarded her as the rightful heir of the English crown, and various plots were entered into by them for the purpose of dethroning Elizabeth, and transferring the throne to her rival. These intrigues, however, were all discovered by the penetration and activity of the English ministers; and they and their royal mistress were utterly unscrupulous in the means they employed to protect the kingdom. In 1572 the English envoy was instructed by Elizabeth herself and her two ministers, Leicester and Burleigh, to propose to the earls of Mar and Morton that Mary should be delivered up to them, in order that she might be immediately put to death; and it was only in consequence of the parsimony of Elizabeth, which made her regard as exorbitant the demands made by Morton of money for himself and pensions to his friends as the reward of this service, that this base and cold-blooded plot was not carried into effect. At last, in 1586, the Scottish queen having been accused of being an accomplice in the conspiracy of Babington, the object of which was the assassination of Elizabeth and the restoration of the Roman catholic religion, was brought to trial before a commission presided over by the lord chancellor (5th October), found guilty, and condemned to death. Mary defended herself with great courage and ability; and, though friendless and unaided by counsel, exposed with spirit and skill the gross illegality and injustice of the charges brought against her. Elizabeth affected great reluctance to carry the sentence into execution. She attempted to throw upon her ministers the responsibility of the deed, which, however, knowing well her treacherous character, they peremptorily refused to accept; and she even made an atrocious attempt to induce Mary's keeper. Sir Amias Paulet, to despatch his prisoner secretly. In the end, finding no other way of at once gratifying her vindictive hatred and carrying out her policy, she signed the warrant for Mary's execution, which was carried into effect on the 7th of February, 1587.—(See Davison, William ) "The meekness with which she received the intimation of her sentence, and the fortitude with which she suffered, formed a striking contrast to the despair and agony which not long afterwards darkened the death-bed of the English queen."
Mary Stewart was undoubtedly a very remarkable woman. The extraordinary vicissitudes of her life, her protracted and cruel captivity, and her tragical death, have rendered her life an object of deep and romantic interest to all succeeding ages. In the opinion of her contemporaries she was the most beautiful woman of her day; and the loveliness of her face and elegance of form, combined with her quick though restless intellect, her lively imagination, generous but excitable temperament, indomitable courage, polished and insinuating manners, and varied and extensive accomplishments, have been eulogized alike by her friends and her enemies. Her moral character was unfortunately not equal to her intellectual endowments. She was hasty in temper, imperious, self-willed, and vindictive; rash and imprudent in her intimacies; and sudden, violent, and immoderate in her attachments. The question of her guilt or innocence in regard to her foreknowledge or approval of her husband's murder, has been the subject of an apparently interminable controversy, in which many devoted admirers have eagerly espoused her cause. But no candid writer can deny that she was guilty of grave errors, if not of foul crimes. Her early training at the licentious court of France, and the difficult position she occupied in her own country, may no doubt be pleaded in extenuation of her conduct; but her misfortunes may to a great extent be traced directly to her own follies and faults. This unhappy princess perished in the forty-fifth year of her age, and in the nineteenth of her captivity.—J. T.
MARY of Anjou, Queen of France, born in 1404, was the daughter of Louis II., duke of Anjou, and was betrothed in 1413 to the Count de Ponthien, afterwards Charles VII. She was plain in person, and though sensible and accomplished, but little fitted to play a part in public affairs. She resided usually at Chinon or Tours, where she expended an ample maintenance in courtly display and luxury. In early life a devoted reader of romances, she was latterly famous for the encouragement she gave by her example and her purse to the pilgrimages to holy places, then greatly in vogue. She died in 1463.
MARY of Austria, daughter of Philip I. of Spain, was married in 1521 to Louis, king of Hungary and Bohemia. A few years later, these countries were invaded by the Turks under Solyman the Magnificent; Louis took the field against them, and fell at the battle of Mohacz in 1526. Ferdinand, one of Mary's brothers, then took possession of the crown in right of his wife, the sister of the deceased monarch. The widowed princess, however, received an equivalent from her other brother, Charles V., who committed to her the government of the Netherlands—a trust which she discharged for many years with great ability. Threatened by the Danes, disturbed by the intrusion of the anabaptists of Munster, and required to co-operate against Henri II. of France, she maintained her authority, and materially aided the interests of Charles. The names of "Diana" and the "Mother of the camp" were given to her, on account of her fondness for the chase and her military prowess; but she had also the tastes which made her a friend of the protestants and a patroness of literature. On the abdication of Charles in 1555 she retired into Spain, and died there three years afterwards, at the age of fifty-five.—W. B.
MARY of Burgundy, daughter and heiress of Charles le Temeraire, duke of Burgundy, was born at Brussels in 1457. The negotiations betwixt her father and the Emperor Frederick III. at Treves, included her betrothal to Maximilian the son of Frederick. But the conference terminated abruptly; and though the proposed union was again mooted, when the emperor and the duke entered into a new treaty at Neuss, it was still undetermined at the death of Charles, who perished in the battle of Nanci in 1477. The prospect of the heritage which then descended to his daughter, combined with the fame of her beauty and accomplishments, had previously attracted proposals of marriage from two other noble suitors—the Duc de Berri, brother of the French king; and Nicholas, duke of Calabria. But the troubles which followed her succession to the Burgundian dominions changed for a time the aspect of her affairs. A spirit of disaffection began to manifest itself among her subjects; Louis XI. of France laid claim to the duchy, and invaded it with a powerful army; her councillors, Hugonet and D'Humbercourt, were missioned to treat with him, and returned to find her under restraint at Ghent, where they were slain in spite of her entreaties and tears, by the revolted burghers. Louis professed a wish that she should become the wife of the dauphin, who was then an infant. But the people of Ghent resolutely resisted him; and Adolph of Guelders, in the hope of gaining the hand of the duchess, took the field on her behalf at the head of a Flemish army. After the defeat and death of this prince at Doornik, she was strongly urged to wed the heir of the duke of Cleves; while the suit of Earl Rivers, brother-in-law of Edward IV.,
