Chapter X: Part 10

The scenes of Bayard's life at which we have been glancing have been chiefly those of his great feats of arms. And so it must be still; for it is these of which the details have survived in history. And yet it was such incidents as these at Brescia which made the fame of Bayard what it was and what it is. To his foes, he was the flower of chivalry; but to his friends, he was, besides, the most adored of men. It is said that in his native province of Dauphiny, at his death, more than a hundred ancient soldiers owed to him the roof that covered their old age; that more than a hundred orphan girls had received their marriage portions from his bounty. But of such acts the vast majority are unrecorded; for these are not the deeds which shine in the world's eye.

Gaston de Foix was now before Ravenna. Bayard rode thither with all speed; he was just in time. Two days after his arrival came the battle. Weak though he still was from his long illness, Bayard on that day was seen, as ever, "shining above his fellow-men." He turned the tide of victory; he tore two standards from the foe with his own hand; and he was first in the pursuit.

Two months after, Bayard was at Pavia. The little troop with which he was then serving had there sought refuge under Louis d'Ars. The armies of the Swiss burst in upon them. Bayard, with a handful of soldiers in the market-place, held, for two hours, their whole force at bay, while his companions were retreating from the town across a bridge of boats. As he himself was crossing, last of all, a shot struck him in the shoulder, and stripped it to the bone. No surgeon was at hand. The wound, roughly stanched with moss, brought on a fever, and for some time he lay in danger of his life.

And now Bayard was to follow a new master. Louis XII. died; Francis I. received the crown; and Bayard, with the young king, marched to Milan, which the Swiss had seized and held.

On Thursday, September 13, 1515, King Francis pitched his camp at Marignano, before the city of the spires. No danger of attack was apprehended; the king sat calmly down to supper in his tent; when all at once the Swiss, aroused to madness by the fiery eloquence of Cardinal de Sion, broke like a tempest from the city, and fell upon the camp. The French, by the red light of sunset, flew to arms, and fought with fury till night fell. Both armies sat all night on horseback, waiting for the dawn; and with the first streaks of morning, flew again to battle. It was noon before the bitter contest ended, and the Swiss, still fighting every inch of ground, drew slowly back toward the city. It had been, indeed, as Trevulzio called it, a Battle of the Giants. And the greatest of the giants had been Bayard and the king.

That evening Francis held, before his tent, the ceremony of creating knights of valor. But before the ceremony began, a proclamation by the heralds startled and delighted all the camp. Francis had determined to receive the rank in his own person. Bayard was to knight the king!

In the days of the primeval chivalry, when even princes were compelled to win their spurs, such a spectacle was not uncommon. But not for ages had a king been knighted by a subject on a field of battle. Nor was any splendor wanting that could make the spectacle impressive. Nowhere in Ariosto is a picture of more gorgeous details than is presented by this scene of history; the great crimson silk pavilion, the seat spread with cloth of gold, the blazoned banners, the heralds with their silver trumpets, the multitude all hushed in wonder, the plumed and glittering company of knights and men-at-arms. Such were the surroundings amid which Francis knelt, and Bayard, with his drawn sword, gave the accolade.

The sword with which he had performed the ceremony Bayard kept religiously until his death. It was then mislaid, and never rediscovered. The loss is a misfortune. For few relics could exist of more romantic interest than the sword with which the noblest of all knights did honor to the most magnificent of kings.

Bayard's glory had long been at such a height that hardly any exploit could increase it. And yet an exploit was at hand at which, even when Bayard was the actor of it, all France and Germany were to stand in wonder.

The German emperor, marching with a mighty army on Champagne, took Monson by surprise, and advanced against Mézières. If Mézières were taken, the whole province would be in the most deadly peril. And yet defence seemed hopeless; the place had no artillery, and the ramparts were in ruins. At this crisis Bayard volunteered to hold the crazy city. "No walls are weak," he said, in his own noble style, "which are defended by brave men."

With a small but chosen band he hastened to Mézières. Two days after his arrival the Count of Nassau, with a vast array of men and cannon, appeared before the walls. The siege began--a siege which seemed impossible to last twelve hours.

But day after day went by, and still the town was standing. Every day the ramparts gaped with cannon-shot; but every night, as if by miracle, they rose again. The defenders suffered from wounds, pestilence, and famine; but Bayard had put every man on oath to eat his horse, and then his boots, before he would surrender. Three weeks passed; and when at last the king arrived with forces to relieve the town, he found a few gaunt spectres still glaring defiance from the battered ramparts against a hundred cannon and more than forty thousand men.

Nothing can more strikingly describe the part of Bayard than the testimony of his enemies themselves. Some time after, Mary of Hungary asked the Count of Nassau in disdain how it came to pass that with a host of troops and guns he could not take a crazy pigeon-house. "Because," replied the count, "there was an eagle in it."

It was Bayard's last great exploit. It had been his lifelong wish that he might fall upon the field of battle. And so it was to be.

Early in the spring of 1524, the French camp was posted at Biagrasso. Lord Bonnivet, who was in command, found himself, after a prolonged resistance, at last compelled by famine and sickness to retire before the Spaniards. It was Bayard's constant custom to be first in an advance and last in retreat, and that day he was, as usual, in the post of danger. It was for the last time. Friends and enemies were to hear, before night fell, the thrilling tidings that Bayard was no more.

On both sides of the road which the retreating army had to traverse the Spaniards had placed in ambush a large force of arquebusiers. It was a weapon which Bayard held in detestation; for while skill and courage were required to wield a spear or sword, any skulking wretch could pull a trigger from behind a stone. From one of these hated weapons he received his death. As he was retreating slowly with his face toward the foe, a stone from a cross-arquebus struck him on the side. He instantly sank forward on his saddle-bow, exclaiming in a faint voice, "Great God! I am killed."

His squire helped him from his horse, and he was laid beneath a tree. His spine was broken in two places; and he felt within himself that he was dying. He took his sword, and kissed the cross-hilt, murmuring aloud the Latin prayer, "_Miserere mei, Deus, secundum magnam misericordiam tuam_."

The Spaniards were approaching. His friends made some attempt to raise him and to bear him from the field. But the least movement made him faint with agony; and he felt that all was vain. He charged his companions, as they loved him, to turn his face toward the enemy, and to retire into a place of safety; and he sent, with his last breath, his salutation to the king. With breaking hearts they did as he desired, and he was left alone.

When the Spaniards reached the spot, they found him still alive, but sinking fast. The conduct of Lord Pescara, the Spanish general, toward his dying foe, was worthy of a great and noble knight. He bade his own pavilion to be spread above him; cushions were placed beneath his head; and a friar was brought, to whom he breathed his last confession. As he was uttering the final words, his voice faltered, and his head fell. The friar looked upon his face--and saw that all was over.

GUSTAVUS VASA[11]

[Footnote 11: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]

By CHARLES F. HORNE

(1496-1560)

Three or four hundred years ago the little country of Denmark was of much greater importance than it is to-day. It had the mightiest navy in the world, and its rule over the seas was undisputed. Its appearance on the map was also very different then, for it not only extended over much of the German territory now surrounding it, but also held all Norway as a province. Sweden, too, though often rebelling, and being punished with terrible cruelty, was, up to the year 1523, a dependency of the Danish crown.

Naturally the Danes rather looked down on the conquered Swedes, and made them the subject of many rude jests and taunts. There was in the beginning of the sixteenth century at the great Danish university at Upsala a Swedish boy, who with the rest of his countrymen must have suffered many such insults. His proud, brave, little heart rebelled against this treatment; and one day, when his teacher had driven him beyond endurance with his severe punishments and bitter sneers, the boy snatched out his little sword and plunged it straight through the master's book. "I will teach you something, too," he cried; "teach you that the Swedes are no cowards, for some day I will gather them together and treat every Dane in Sweden as I do your book." Then he rushed out of the school, never to return.

Many lads have, in some moment of passion made big boasts of what they would do "some day." Few ever made so tremendous a vaunt; fewer still ever so completely fulfilled their threats; and, perhaps, no one ever struggled so patiently, so nobly, nor against such tremendous obstacles before the goal was reached, as did this angry little Swede, known to history as Gustavus Vasa. He was born in 1496, and was the oldest son of Sir Eric Johansson, governor of a little group of islands in the Gulf of Bothnia. Returning home after his precipitate flight from school, Gustavus grew up under the eye of his stalwart father, who trained him to be not only a strong and a shrewd man, but also a good one.

Sent at the age of eighteen to the court of Svante Sture, the regent governing Sweden, he threw himself eagerly into the great war for freedom which his countrymen had begun under that mighty leader. This struggle was so far successful that four years later King Christian, of Denmark, utterly defeated on land and with his fleet in sore danger anchored off Stockholm, and proposed a peace. He asked that hostages be sent to remain on his ships, while he was on shore arranging the treaty. This was readily agreed to, and the hostages went on board without a thought of evil, the king having guaranteed their safe return. Young Vasa, although only twenty-two, had already gained such prominence among the patriots as to be one of those selected for this duty. Just as he and his companions reached the ships, the wind, which had hitherto blown from such a direction that King Christian was unable to leave the harbor, suddenly changed, and the king as promptly changing his plans, hoisted sail and fled from Stockholm, carrying with him, as prisoners, the hostages whom he was bound in honor to respect. But this grim and cruel old king never at any time let himself be checked by his promised word; and now he seriously considered slaying these men as rebels and traitors. Finally he concluded to hold them as prisoners.

Gustavus was placed for safe keeping in the castle of Eric Bauer, a Jutland noble, where he remained for two years. He lived on the very poorest food, and far worse, had to endure taunts a hundred times more bitter than those of his old school days, from the young nobles about him. Worse still, he learned from them that King Christian was gathering another and greater army with which to utterly crush the rebellious Swedes; and he could neither warn his countrymen nor raise a finger to give them help. But his courage and patience never failed him. Through all that weary time he was always planning and watching for a chance to escape. At last it came. Deceived by his apparent indifference his jailers permitted him to ride, and even to hunt with them, but always under a careful watch. One day, however, the hunt grew so exciting that everyone forgot Gustavus and rode hard and fast after the game. He saw his opportunity, and rode hardest and fastest of all. Soon he was first in the race; but he did not stop when he reached the captured deer. There was no one in sight and he hurried on faster than ever. When his horse gave out he pressed forward on foot, and nightfall found him forty miles from the castle. He astonished a countryman by trading clothes with him; and the next day, thus disguised, he hired himself to a drover to help him drive a herd of cattle to the great German city of Lubeck. Probably no cattle had ever been so driven before. Our hero knew well that the pursuit would be fast and furious, and he kept the herd almost on a steady run. The old drover was in a perpetual state of amazement; he did not know whether to regard his new assistant as a madman or as the most valuable hand he had ever hired. Gustavus never let the poor old fellow rest a moment; he had to eat his meals as he walked, and even to totter along half asleep. At last animals and men reached Lubeck, all badly worn out, but safe, for Lubeck was a free city and a powerful one, and when, an hour later, the enraged Eric Bauer galloped up to its great gates, he knew that his prisoner was beyond his reach, and that unless he could persuade the citizens to give him up there was no chance of recapturing him.

The citizens did not give Gustavus up. He and his jailer were brought face to face before the City Council to argue their case. When Eric said his prisoner had broken his word in escaping, Gustavus related how the king had broken his in the capture. When Eric threatened them all with his master's wrath, the shrewd old burghers laughed. They knew King Christian had other things to keep him busy enough, and that he would think twice before attacking their great league of cities. Besides, this young man had already shown that he could do great things, and, as one of the Council said, "Who knows what he may win if we send him home." So Eric was forced to leave without his captive; and after some delay, during which he was treated with high honor, Gustavus was sent home by the kind Lubeckers with the promise to help him, if need be, with both men and money.

Indeed Sweden needed all the help she could get just then; but it did not seem as though one man could do much for her. King Christian had carried out his threats, and landing with a great army, defeated the brave Sture and spread terror and destruction through all the land. The tale of his cruelty and treacheries belongs rather to the history of Sweden than of Gustavus. Enough to say that, having by promises of peace and pardon got all the leading Swedes into his power, he had them murdered, and then he and his soldiers went on slaying the common people right and left in mere wanton savagery. All the surviving nobles were in his pay; the least suspicion of an uprising was crushed with an iron hand, the least murmur of discontent brought death. Never had Sweden seemed more helpless in the power of the Danes.

To this unhappy country came Gustavus Vasa, and at once he was declared an outlaw, and a great price was offered for his head; for the king knew that here survived one man whom he could neither terrify nor bribe. One castle still held out against the besieging Danes, and for this Gustavus set out. But its defenders were disheartened by their hopeless position, and were almost on the point of surrender. They answered angrily to his brave words, and he left them to try and rouse the peasantry all over the land.

Now began for him such a period of danger, sorrow, and privation, as few men could have endured and lived. The land was filled with Danes eager for his capture. The peasants were timid and disheartened. To his passionate patriotic appeal they answered only, "We have salt and herring still. If we rebel we will lose them too." Often they drove him away with stones. Sometimes his own countrymen would have slain him for the promised reward. At length it was no longer possible for him to remain in Southern Sweden, and with a single servant he fled to the highlands of Dalecarlia, a province in the north. From this on his life reads like some wild romance of adventure. He had the grim courage and grit and perseverance of a bull-dog. Nothing could dishearten him in his seemingly hopeless and insane resolve to raise the Swedes once more against Christian.

He found as much devotion in some places, as he did treachery in others. Having crossed a ferry in advance of his servant, this latter rode off with their small stock of money. Gustavus plunged his horse into the river, and riding back after the faithless servitor, pursued him all day straight back into the enemy's country, until the terrified thief, abandoning horse and money and all, fled into the woods. Gustavus recovered his property and pursued his course. The Danes swarmed into Dalecarlia after him. He disguised himself as a woodcutter, and lived as such. One day he met in the woods a giant Dalesman named Liss Lars, and, as they were chatting together, a great bear attacked Gustavus. After a fierce battle Lars slew the brute with a blow of his axe. The two woodcutters became friends, and Lars got his companion a place under the same master as himself, where Gustavus remained a whole winter unsuspected. Often he himself was questioned by the Danish spies, hunting for the now famous Vasa.

Once there was like to have been trouble between the two friends, for Lars loved a maiden at the farm, who out of coquetry often smiled at Gustavus, until the giant Dalesman became terribly jealous. One day when she brought them their noon-day ale, she handed it first to Gustavus, who, after drinking, returned it with a pleasant word and a pat on the cheek. With a roar like a mad bull, Lars rushed on his comrade and seized him in his giant arms. As he did so he saw around his neck the embroidered collar worn by the Swedish nobility. The astounded Dalesman staggered back, pointing to it. "Either thou art a thief, or the great Gustavus himself." "Ay, friend Lars, I am the outlaw Gustavus, son of Eric. Now, wilt thou hand me over to the Danes, or smash my head against the floor, as just now thou seemedest minded?" "I will swear eternal fealty to thee," cried Lars; "and if thou raisest the standard of revolt, I will be the first to join."

Soon, however, even this retired spot became too unsafe, and Gustavus fled farther north. Once an old schoolmate offered him shelter, and then, while Gustavus slept, rode away to get help to capture him. But the housewife, suspecting her husband's treachery, roused Gustavus, who climbed through a window twenty feet from the ground, and escaped on a horse the good woman had provided.

At another time, by burying himself in a load of hay he was carried past some Danish soldiers who were searching for him. They thrust their spears through the hay and then rode on. One of the spears wounded the hidden man, and, seeing the blood trickle down, the soldiers hurried back. But the driver had snatched out his knife and given a slight cut to one of his horses; and when he pointed to this, charging one of them with having done it, they rode away again laughing at their own suspicions. In a hundred other equally dangerous situations he escaped either by his own courage, or by the ready wit of the brave Dalecarlian peasants; and at last the Danish spies gave up the hunt for him, and returned to Stockholm.

Then he came forth again, and in ringing words urged the people to revolt. But though they loved Gustavus, and loved Sweden, yet they held back in doubt and fear from his daring plans; and so the hero left them, and went on through the surrounding provinces, telling everywhere of King Christian's cruelty, and sowing seed which was to ripen later on. Yet nowhere could he rouse the peasants to action, until word came that the cruel king had sworn to cut a hand and foot from every man in Sweden, that they might never revolt again. Now all felt that there was nothing left but fight. In great haste the Dalecarlians sent after Gustavus and brought him back. They held a great meeting, and to it came Gustavus' wood-cutter friend, Liss Lars. He made a great homely speech, saying, "This Gustavus, son of Eric, is a man. He has threshed with me, and I know him. We can trust him, and sense has he, more than all of us put together. He must be our leader."

All swore fealty to Gustavus; and he bade them make swords and spears and arrows on their own anvils, while he went on again to rouse the other provinces. King Christian had been called home by a rumor of rebellion there, but his lieutenants thought to crush this little uprising of the Dalecarlians as easily as they had a few others, and one of them marched promptly there with a large force. The brave peasants, led by Liss Lars and another, attacked him as he was crossing a river and defeated him with great slaughter. Gustavus heard rumors of the battle, and that his little army was destroyed. In wild haste he galloped back to Dalecarlia to find them celebrating their victory.

Now did the men he had roused in every quarter come pouring in; and he drilled them, and trained them, and encouraged them, became head and hand and heart for them all, till soon he had such an army that he might fairly hope to match any force the Danes could bring against him. Then he sent out a proclamation declaring Christian deposed for his cruel and bloody tyranny, and calling all true Swedes to join him in making war upon the oppressor.

Thus did this young man at twenty-five become the leader of a great rebellion, which he himself had created and controlled. He led his men against one fortress after another. There were long sieges and terrible battles; but Gustavus proved himself as great a general as he was a man; and two years later, in 1525, Stockholm, the last town remaining to the Danes in Sweden, surrendered to his army. Christian himself had been unable to leave Denmark, but he was in constant communication with his lieutenants, and wild was his rage at the continued success of his young opponent. Gustavus's mother and sister, with many other Swedish ladies, had fallen into the king's hands at the time of those wholesale murders; and he tried to frighten the hero with threats of what he would do to them; but poor Gustavus had learned only too surely that most of them were already dead from his cruel treatment. Finally this brute was deposed by his own subjects, and a new king chosen. This king made some faint attempts to recover Sweden, but he had small chance against such a man as Vasa.

The hero and his army entered Stockholm in triumph; and such of the old nobles as were left, gathered in a council and offered him the crown which he had wrested from Denmark. He refused it, saying he had labored for his country, not himself, and bade the nobles choose from among themselves some older man. But the whole country cried out that they would submit to no man but him; he had freed them, he should rule them. So there was, what seldom has been in history, a free choice of a king by a united people; and Gustavus, son of Eric, became Gustavus I., King of Sweden. Five years before he had been carried off a helpless, almost friendless prisoner, by a mighty king. Now they had, by sheer force of character, changed places; the king was in a dungeon, Gustavus on a throne.

Though the remainder of our hero's life was less adventurous, it was no less noble. He made, as all had foreseen, a great king, showing himself as wise and high-minded as he had already proven brave and patient. He found Sweden a petty province, he left it a mighty kingdom; he found it a wilderness, poor, thinly peopled, and semi-barbarous, he left it prosperous, populous, and civilized. He himself was the head and centre of all this, performing an amount of work which seems almost impossible for one man. His letters, some of which remain, are clear, minute in detail, and exact. He knew just how he wanted things done, and he had them done his way. His own life might be summed up in his advice to his two sons, given when, only a few months before his death, he resigned a crown grown too heavy for his failing strength. "Think carefully, execute promptly, _never give up_, never delay. Resolves not carried out are like clouds without rain in times of drought."

MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS

By SAMUEL L. KNAPP

(1542-1587)

Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, was the third child of James V. and his wife, Mary of Guise. That lady had borne him previously, two sons, both of whom died in infancy. Mary was born on December 7, 1542, in the palace of Linlithgow. She was only seven days old when she lost her father, who, at the time of her birth, lay sick at the palace of Falkland.

The young queen was crowned by Cardinal Beaton, at Stirling, on September 9, 1543. Soon after her birth, the Parliament nominated commissioners, to whom they intrusted the charge of the queen's person, leaving all her other interests to the care of her mother. The first two years of her life, Mary spent at Linlithgow, where it is said she had the small-pox, but the disease must have been of a particularly gentle kind, having left behind no visible traces. During the greater part of the years 1545, 1546, and 1547, she resided at Stirling Castle, in the keeping of Lords Erskine and Livingstone. She was afterward removed to Inchmahome, a sequestered island in the lake of Monteith; after remaining there upward of two years, it was thought expedient by those who had at the time the disposal of her future destiny, that she should be removed to France. She was accordingly, in the fifth year of her age, taken to Dunbarton, where she was delivered to the French admiral, whose vessels were waiting to receive her; and attended by Lords Erskine and Livingstone, her three natural brothers, and four young ladies as companions, she left Scotland.

The thirteen happiest years of Mary's life were spent in France. She was received at Brest, by order of Henry II., with all the honors due to her rank and royal destiny. She travelled by easy stages to the palace at St. Germain en Laye; and to mark the respect that was paid to her, the prison gates of every town she came to were thrown open, and the prisoners set free. Shortly after her arrival she was sent, along with the king's own daughters, to one of the first convents in France, where young ladies of distinction were instructed in the elementary branches of education.

Henry, to confirm the French authority in Scotland, was eager to marry Francis, his son, to Mary. Francis, the young dauphin, who was much about Mary's own age, was far inferior to her both in personal appearance and mental endowments. They had been playmates from infancy; they had prosecuted all their studies together; he loved her with the tenderest affection; it was not in Mary's nature to be indifferent to those who evinced affection for her; and if her fondness for Francis was mingled with pity, it has long been asserted that "pity is akin to love."

On April 24, 1558, the nuptials took place in the church of Notre Dame, with great splendor. Every eye was fixed on the youthful Mary; and, inspired by those feelings which beauty seldom fails to excite, every heart offered up prayers for her future welfare and happiness. She was now at that age when feminine loveliness is perhaps most attractive. It is not to be supposed, indeed, that her charms, in her sixteenth year, had ripened into that full-blown maturity which they afterward attained; but they were on this account only the more fascinating. Some have conjectured that Mary's beauty has been extolled far above its real merits; and it cannot be denied that many vague and erroneous notions exist regarding it. But that her countenance possessed, in a pre-eminent degree, the something which constitutes beauty, is sufficiently attested by the unanimous declaration of all contemporary writers. Her person was finely proportioned, and her carriage exceedingly graceful and dignified.

Shortly after the espousals, Mary and her husband retired to one of their princely summer residences, where she discharged the duties of a wife without ostentation. 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 had declared that the succession rested in her sister Elizabeth, it was thought proper to claim for Mary Stuart a prior right. But it was destined that there was to be another and more unexpected death at the French court. Henry II. was killed at a tournament by Count Montgomery. Francis and Mary succeeded to the throne. Mary was now at the very height of European grandeur, for she was queen of two powerful countries, and heir presumptive of a third. She stood unluckily on too high a pinnacle to be able to retain her position long. Francis died after a short reign of seventeen months, and the heir to the throne Charles IX., being a minor, Catharine de Medicis became once more virtually queen of France; and from her Mary could expect no favors.

In August, 1561, Mary left France with tears, and was received in Scotland with every mark of respect. She came, alone and unprotected, to assume the government of a country which had long been distinguished for its rebellious turbulence. Contrasted, too, with her former situation, that which she was now about to fill appeared particularly formidable. By whatever counsel she acted, the blame of all unpopular measures would be sure to rest with her. If she favored the Protestants, the Catholics were sure to renounce her, and if she assisted the Catholics, the Protestants would be again found assembling at Perth, listening, with arms in their hands, to the sermons of John Knox, pulling down the remaining monasteries, and subscribing additional covenants. Is it surprising, then, that she found it difficult to steer her course between the rocks of Scylla and the whirlpools of Charybdis? If misfortunes ultimately overtook her, the wonder unquestionably ought to be, not that they ever arrived, but that they should have been guarded against so long.

To further their political views, Mary's hand was sought for by princes of the several European courts. The princes of the house of Austria, apprehensive of the ambition of France, wished a union between the Scottish queen and the Archduke Charles. Philip II., envying the Austrians so important a prize, used all his influence to procure her hand for his son Don Carlos, heir to the extensive domains of the Spanish monarchy. Catharine de Medicis, jealous of them both, offered the hand of the Duke of Anjou, brother to her former husband, and Elizabeth, the artful queen of England, recommended Lord Robert Dudley, afterward Earl of Leicester.

Mary shunned all their intrigues, and followed the bent of her own inclination in marrying Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, eldest son of the Earl of Lennox. Darnley, at this time in the bloom of youth, was distinguished for the beauty and grace of his person, and accomplished in every elegant art; and he also professed the Catholic religion. Darnley's qualifications, however, were superficial, and abandoning himself to pleasure and the vices of youth, he became gradually careless and indifferent toward the queen, whose disappointments and mortifications were in proportion to the fervor of her former sentiments. Her French secretary was one David Rizzio, who was possessed of musical talents, and to whom she became much attached. Darnley became jealous of Rizzio, and he, with a number of conspirators, took possession of the palace on March 9, 1566, while the queen was at supper with the Countess of Argyle and Rizzio. The latter clung to the queen for protection, but he was torn from her and dragged to the next apartment, where the fury of his enemies put an end to his existence, by piercing his body with fifty-six wounds. The conspirators put Mary under guard, but she escaped, and by the aid of Bothwell and others, she was soon enabled to put her enemies at defiance. This event served to alienate Mary's affections from Darnley.

On June 19, 1566, the queen gave birth to a son; an event more fortunate to the nation than to his unhappy mother, whose evil destiny received aggravation from a circumstance which appeared so flattering to her hopes.

Darnley, neglected by the queen, and despised by the people, remained in solitude at Stirling, but alarmed by the rumor of a design to seize his person, he thought fit to retire to his father at Glasgow. On his way thither he was seized with a dangerous illness. Mary visited him, and it is said prevailed on him to be removed to the capital, where she would attend on him. Kirk of Field, a house belonging to the provost of a collegiate church, was prepared for his reception. The situation, on a rising ground and in an open field, was recommended for the salubrity of its air.

At two o'clock on the morning of February 10, 1567, the city was alarmed by a sudden explosion. The house in which Darnley resided was blown up with gunpowder. The dead body of Henry and a servant, who slept in his room, were found lying in an adjacent garden, without marks of violence, and untouched by fire. Thus perished Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, in his twenty-first year, a youth whom the indulgence of nature and fortune had combined to betray to his ruin.

This execrable deed gave rise to various suspicions and conjectures, which, while they glanced at the queen from her new sentiments with regard to her husband, were, with a general consent, directed toward Bothwell. A proclamation was issued from the throne, offering a considerable reward for the murderer. Neither the power and greatness of Bothwell, nor his favor with the queen, secured him from the indignant sentiment of the nation. He had a mock trial, in which he was acquitted.

The queen, on a journey from Edinburgh to Stirling, to visit her son, was seized by a party of Bothwell's and conducted a prisoner to his castle at Dunbar. Here he prevailed on her to marry him, and on her subsequent appearance in public she was received with a sullen and disrespectful silence by the people.

The transactions which had passed during the last three months in Scotland were beheld by Europe with horror and detestation. The murder of the king, the impunity with which his assassins were suffered to escape, and the marriage of the queen with the man accused of being their chief, were a series of incidents, which, for their atrocity and rapid succession, were scarcely to be paralleled in the pages of history. A general infamy fell upon the Scotch nation, which was regarded, from these circumstances, as a people void of decency, humanity, and honor.

The discontented nobles confederated together and flew to arms. Bothwell and Mary were unable to stem the opposition; she surrendered to her enemies, and was conducted a captive to the castle of Lochleven. Mary had for some weeks suffered the terrors of a prison; of her deliverance there seemed to be but little prospect; no one had appeared as her defender or advocate. Thus solitary, deserted, and distressed, her persecutors reckoned on her fears and on her sex. Lord Lindsay, the fiercest zealot of the party, was employed to communicate their plan to the queen, and to obtain from her a subscription to the papers with which he was charged. In the execution of his commission, he spared neither harshness nor brutality; certain death was offered to the unhappy victim, as the alternative of her refusal. Thus urged, she yielded to the pressure of circumstances, and put her signature to the papers presented to her by Lindsay. By one of these papers she resigned the crown, renounced all share in the government, and consented to the coronation of the young king. By another, she appointed Murray to the regency, and vested him with the powers and privileges of the office. Pierced with grief, and bathed in indignant tears, she signed the deed of her own humiliation, and furnished to her adversaries the instrument of her abasement.

The people were not generally satisfied with the conduct of Murray, the regent, and the scattered party of the queen began gradually to reunite. Such was the disposition of the nation when Mary, through the medium of George Douglas, a youth of eighteen, contrived to escape from prison. She flew on horseback, at full speed, to Hamilton, where, before a train of great and splendid nobles, and an army 6,000 strong, she declared that the deeds signed by her during her imprisonment, and the resignation of her crown, were extorted from her by fear. An engagement between her forces and those of Murray took place at Hamilton; her army was defeated. She stood on a hill and saw all that passed. In confusion and horror she began her flight, and so terrible was the trepidation of her spirits, that she stopped not till she reached the abbey of Dunrenan, in Galloway, fully sixty Scottish miles from the field of battle. In the space of eleven days she had beheld herself a prisoner, at the mercy of her greatest enemies; at the head of a powerful army, with a numerous train of nobles devoted to her service; and a fugitive, at the hazard of her life, driven, with a few attendants, to lurk in a corner of her kingdom. Still anxious and agitated in her retreat, she was impelled by her fears to an irretrievable step, fatal to all her future hopes. In vain her attendants, with the lords Herries and Heming, implored her on their knees not to confide in Elizabeth, her resolution was not to be shaken, and to England she fatally resolved to fly. No longer an object of jealousy, but compassion, Mary trusted in the generosity of a sister queen, that she would not take advantage of her calamitous situation. She got into a fisherman's boat, and with about twenty attendants, landed at Workington, in Cumberland, whence, with marks of respect, she was conducted to Carlisle.

She addressed, on her arrival in England, a letter to the queen, in which she painted in glowing colors the injuries she had sustained, and implored the sympathy and assistance which her present situation so pressingly required. Elizabeth and her council deliberated upon the course which, in this extraordinary event, it would be proper to pursue; and at last determined, in spite of justice and humanity, to avail herself of the advantages given her by the confidence of her rival. Mary demanded a personal interview with Elizabeth, but this honor she was told must be denied to her. She had no intention of acknowledging superiority in the queen of England, who, she expected, would, as a friend, herself receive and examine her defences. But Elizabeth chose to consider herself as umpire between the Scottish queen and her subjects; and she prepared to appoint commissioners to hear the pleadings of both parties, and wrote to the Regent of Scotland to empower proper persons to appear in his name, and produce what could be alleged in vindication of his proceedings.

Mary, who had hitherto relied on the professions of Elizabeth, was by this proposal at once undeceived, and she was, in despite of her remonstrances and complaints, conducted to Bolton, a castle of Lord Scroop, on the borders of Yorkshire. Commissioners met on both sides, and after protracted deliberations for four months, they left things just as they found them.

The last eighteen years of Mary's life were spent in imprisonment, and are comparatively a blank in her personal history. She was transported, at intervals, from castle to castle, and was intrusted sometimes to the charge of one nobleman, and sometimes to another; but for her the active scenes of life were past; the splendor and dignity of a throne were to be enjoyed no longer; the sceptre of her native country was never more to grace her hands; her will ceased to influence a nation; her voice did not travel beyond the walls that witnessed her confinement. She came into England at the age of twenty-five, in the prime of womanhood, the full vigor of health, and the rapidly ripening strength of her intellectual powers. She was there destined to feel, in all its bitterness, that "hope deferred maketh the heart sick." Year after year passed slowly on, and year after year her spirits became more exhausted, her health feebler, and her doubts and fears confirmed, till they at length settled in despair. Premature old age overtook her before she was past the meridian of life; and for some time before her death, her hair was white "with other snows than those of age." Yet, during the whole of this long period, amid sufferings which would have broken many a masculine spirit, and which, even in our own times, have been seen to conquer those who had conquered empires, Mary retained the innate grace and dignity of her character, never forgetting that she had been born a queen, or making her calamities an excuse for the commission of any petty meanness, which she would have scorned in the days of her prosperity. Full of incident as her previous life had been, brilliant in many of its achievements, it may be doubted whether the forbearance, fortitude, and magnanimity displayed in her latter years, do not redound more highly to her praise than all that preceded. Elizabeth wished for some plausible pretext to take away the life of the unhappy Mary, whom, though so defenceless, she regarded as a dangerous rival. The Duke of Norfolk made offers of marriage to Mary, to which she consented, in case she should be liberated. His scheme also was to favor the Catholic cause, and on its being discovered he was thrown into prison, where, after six months' confinement, he was liberated, on condition of his holding no further intercourse with the queen. He was, however, arrested the second time, and executed.

A conspiracy soon after took place, through the blind affection of the English Catholics for Mary, and their implacable hatred of Elizabeth; that, while it proved fatal to the life of one queen, has left on the memory of the other an indelible stain. It was a conspiracy of two zealous Catholics, to take the life of Elizabeth. The plot was revealed in confidence to Anthony Babington, a young gentleman of Derbyshire, possessing a large fortune and many amiable qualities, whom the Archbishop of Glasgow had recommended to the notice of Mary. The conspirators, through treachery, were arrested, and it is said two letters from Mary were found with Babington. This was a pretext to represent these fanatics as the instruments of the captive queen. Determined that no circumstance of solemnity suited to the dignity of the person arraigned might be wanting, Elizabeth appointed, by a commission under the great seal, forty persons, the most illustrious in the kingdom for their rank and birth, together with five judges, for the decision of the cause.

On October 11, 1586, the commissioners arrived at Fotheringay, where Mary was confined. She solemnly protested her innocence of the crime laid to her charge, and having never countenanced any attempt against the life of Elizabeth, she refused to acknowledge the jurisdiction of the commissioners. "I came," said she, "into the kingdom an independent sovereign, to implore the queen's assistance, not to subject myself to her authority. Nor is my spirit so broken by past misfortunes, or intimidated by present dangers, as to stoop to anything unbecoming the majesty of a crowned head, or that will disgrace the ancestors from whom I am descended, and the son to whom I shall leave my throne."

Mary made her own defence; and her conduct before her judges displayed the magnanimity of a heroine, tempered by the gentleness and modesty of a woman. The judges were predetermined to find her guilty: the trial was a mere pretence to give a sanction to their proceedings; they were unanimous in declaring Mary "to be accessory to the conspiracy of Babington, and to have imagined divers matters, tending to the hurt, death, and destruction of Elizabeth, contrary to the express words of the statute made for the security of the life of the queen."

On Tuesday, February 7, 1587, the Earls of Shrewsbury and Kent arrived at Fotheringay, and read in Mary's presence the warrant for her execution, which was appointed for the ensuing day. "That soul," said Mary, calmly crossing herself, "is unworthy the joys of heaven, which repines because the body must endure the stroke of the axe. I submit willingly to the lot which heaven has decreed for me; though I did not expect the Queen of England would set the first example of violating the sacred person of a sovereign prince." Then laying her hand on a Bible, which happened to be near her, she solemnly protested her innocence.

At the scaffold she prayed for the prosperity of her son, and for a long and peaceable reign to Elizabeth. She hoped for mercy, she declared, only through the death of Christ, at the foot of whose image she willingly shed her blood. With intrepid calmness she laid her neck on the block; her hands were held by one executioner, while the other, with two blows, dissevered her head from her body. "So perish all the enemies of Elizabeth!" exclaimed the dean, as he held up the streaming head. "Amen," answered the Earl of Kent alone; every other eye was drowned in tears; every other voice was stifled in commiseration. Thus, after a life of forty-four years and two months, nineteen years of which had been passed in captivity, perished the lovely and unfortunate Mary, Queen of Scots.

CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH[12]

[Footnote 12: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]

By MARION HARLAND

(1579-1631)

Of the antecedents of John Smith, Esquire, Captain and Knight, little is recorded beyond the facts that he was of gentle blood and honorable lineage, and that he was born in Lancashire, England, in 1579.

He was still under age when he enlisted as a private soldier and fought with "our army" in Flanders. Sigismund Bathor, Duke of Transylvania, was warring with the Turks, and young Smith, athirst for adventure, next took service under him. Before the Transylvanian town of Regall, he killed three Turkish officers in single combat, for which doughty deed he was knighted. The certificate of Sigismund's patent empowering the Englishman to quarter three Turks' heads upon the family coat-of-arms is in the Herald's Office in London.

The tables were turned by his subsequent capture by the Turks. He was sent to Tartary as a slave, not a prisoner of war, and compelled to perform the most ignoble tasks, until, escaping by killing his brutal master, he made his way by his wits to his native country in 1604. He was now twenty-five years of age, and emphatically a soldier of fortune. The tale of his prowess and adventures had preceded him, and he was eagerly welcomed in London by kindred spirits who were preparing to emigrate to America to form the colony of Virginia under the grant and direct patronage of James I. By the time the enterprise was ripe for execution, Smith had made himself so useful in counsel and preparation that the king named him as one of the councillors of the prospective colony.

The boundary lines of the royal grant were two hundred miles north, and the same distance south, of the mouth of the James River, and east and west "from sea to sea."

On December 19, 1606, the band of adventurers, 100 in number, embarked at Gravesend in three small vessels. Christopher Newport was in command, but Smith, and his close allies, Bartholomew Gosnold and George Percy, a younger brother of the Duke of Northumberland, were the ruling spirits of the voyagers. Carpenters and laborers were oddly jumbled upon the list of emigrants with jewellers, perfumers, and gold refiners, and "gentlemen" held prominence in numbers and influence. The officers outnumbered the privates. The little fleet was hardly out of the offing when the struggle for power began. The voyage was not half accomplished when John Smith was charged with complicity in a discovered mutiny. He had intended, it was alleged, to murder his superiors, seize the fleet, and make himself king of Virginia. The "General History of Virginia" tells how serious an aspect the affair wore:

"Such factions here we had, as commonly attend such voyages, that a paire of gallowes was made, but Captain Smith, for whom they were intended, _could not be persuaded to use them_."

He was still under suspicion and arrest when the fleet anchored (May 13, 1607) in the broad river, Powhatan, to which the English explorers gave the name of their king. Their first tents were pitched and first cabins built upon a low peninsula flanked by extensive marshes. The settlement received the name of Jamestown, in further demonstration of loyalty.

When the king's sealed orders were opened, the name of John Smith appeared second upon the roll of seven councillors appointed to govern the infant colony. Next to him Gosnold was fittest for the responsible position assigned to them. His death within three months after the landing, left Smith the object of the envious distrust of Wingfield, who had been elected president, and virtually alone in the honest desire to found a permanent settlement in Virginia for ends he thus sets forth:

"Erecting towns, peopling countries, informing the ignorant, reforming things unjust, teaching virtue and gain to our native Mother Country."

There is a prophetic ring in this remarkable utterance of one whom his contemporaries persisted in regarding as a reckless adventurer, ambitious and unscrupulous. His frank denunciation of the feeble measures of Wingfield and the selfish villainy of Ratcliffe, another colleague, had earned the ill-will of the president and the relentless hatred of Ratcliffe. Smith, being under arrest, was not allowed to take his place among the councillors. He bided the day of justice with patience learned from adversity. When the supreme opportunity came he grasped it. An attack from hostile Indians proved Wingfield's unfitness for the military command, and the alarmed colonists turned instinctively to the bravest of their number. Wingfield anticipated the uprising by reiterating his intention of sending Smith to England for trial, for the double crime of mutiny and treason.