Chapter I: Summary (1)

Personal acquaintance of James V. and Mary of Lorraine--Her
descent from Charlemagne--Her father, Claud Duke of Guise--Her
mother, Antoinette de Bourbon-Vendôme--Her birth--Her brothers,
&c.--Marriage to Louis Duke of Longueville--Birth of her eldest
son--Early death of her husband--Her deep grief--Renunciation
of Paris and the world--Francis I. destines her hand for James
V.--Birth of her posthumous son--Henry VIII. demands her in
marriage--She declines his offer--His perseverance--She pleads
her duty to her children--Death of her youngest infant--Henry
VIII. continues his suit--Francis I. engages her to the King of
Scots--Gives her a rich dowry--Her betrothal at Chasteaudun--Her
marriage to King James by proxy at Nôtre Dame--Her voyage--Lands
at Crail--Met by James V.--Reception at St. Andrews as Queen
of Scotland--Her opinions of the people and country--Portraits
of her and James--Particulars of her courts at St. Andrews,
Linlithgow, Stirling, and Falkland--Birth of her son, James
Prince of Scotland, May, 1539--Queen’s presents at her son’s
baptism--She is alarmed by reports that her husband was lost at
sea--His joyful return to her--His poem of Christ’s Kirk on the
Green.

Of all the ladies James V. of Scotland had seen in France, with the exception of his lovely and beloved Magdalene, he had admired Mary of Lorraine, Duchess de Longueville, the most. Indeed, there is reason to believe that an impression was made on the susceptible heart of the errant monarch by the charms of this fair Duchess, previous to his introduction to the royal flower of Valois. Drummond of Hawthornden says,--“While James disported himself in France, he had made acquaintance with a lady rich in excellences, who, next to Magdalene, had the power of his affections, Mary of Lorraine, sister to Francis, daughter of Claud Duke of Guise, and widow of the Duke of Longueville.” Mary of Lorraine, however, was not the widow, but the wife of the Duke of Longueville, at the time she and James of Scotland first met, which in all probability was at the court of her mother’s brother, the Duke of Vendôme, when the royal bachelor, King James, came in disguise to steal an unsuspected look at Mary of Vendôme, to whom his hand was plighted. Now, as Chasteaudun--one of the family seats of the Duke of Longueville--was in the immediate neighborhood of Vendôme, it is possible that the Duchess of Longueville was present at the very time when her cousin, Mary of Vendôme, recognized the King of Scotland by his likeness to his portrait. It has already been shown that James remained several days at that little court, though he was from the first determined not to fulfill his engagement with Mary of Vendôme, who did not please his fastidious taste. It may be asked what attraction detained him there, after he had made up his mind to break his engagement with the one cousin, if it were not the pleasure he felt in the company of the other. But Mary of Lorraine was the wife, the happy wife, of the Duke of Longueville, and the mother of his infant heir, with every prospect of passing years of domestic felicity in her own country, with those ties of virtuous affection. James must, therefore, have felt the uselessness of allowing his thoughts to dwell on her; and after he had once seen Magdalene, whatever impression had been made on him by the Duchess of Longueville, was superseded by an absorbing passion for that princess, which lasted long after the bonds of wedded love were severed by the inexorable hand of death.

By a singular coincidence, it happened that the beautiful Duchess of Longueville became a widow just one month and a day before James V. of Scotland was bereaved of his youthful Queen.

That mysterious affair called the Glammis conspiracy,[606] being an alledged plot against King James’s life by the sister of the banished Earl of Angus, gave cause to his sage counsellors to urge him to endeavor, by a second marriage, to provide for a peaceful succession to the crown by royal issue of his own.

The popularity, and indeed the pecuniary advantages which had attended James’s wedlock with a royal daughter of France, naturally disposed him to turn his thoughts to that realm for a second alliance, which might strengthen all the political advantages procured by his first marriage.

His thoughts, then, by a very natural association of ideas, recurred, not as they ought to have done, to the forsaken Mary of Vendôme, with the laudable resolution of endeavoring to atone to her for his breach of contract by offering her the reversion of his hand, but to her who had almost disputed his heart with Magdalene, the blooming Duchess of Longueville, who was, according to Balfour, “a _werrey bewtiful lady_.”[607]

“Her,” says Drummond of Hawthornden, “he thinketh for her stem, healthful complexion, and fertility--for she had been a mother--worthy of his love; and to try her affections toward himself, he directeth David Beton and the Lord Maxwell to negotiate this marriage.”

In rank, the Duchess of Longueville was some degrees beneath the first consort of James V., but in point of descent, the blood that flowed in her veins as a daughter of the Carlovingian house of Lorraine, was no whit inferior to that of Magdalene of Valois, and fully equal to that of the proudest of the royal families of Europe.

Not one of these, in any of its branches, ever attained to the power and dignity acquired by the mighty progenitor of Mary of Lorraine, whose widely-extended empire has only been paralleled in modern times by that of Napoleon. The ebb of that flood-tide of greatness, if less sudden, was equally remarkable, and affords a grand moral lesson of the mutations of earthly glory. But the details of the expulsion of the Carlovingian line from imperial greatness belong not to the biography of this Princess. We must refer the reader to the heraldic tables of the royal houses of France, and the chronicles of Lorraine, for the particulars of Mary’s descent and genealogy are too voluminous and complicated to be recorded here. Her father, Claud of Lorraine, the founder of the house of Guise, was the fifth son of René II. Duke of Lorraine, and Philippa of Gueldres. Through his maternal lineage he was related to James V., that monarch being the great-grandson of Mary of Gueldres.

Lorraine, the principality of Mary’s paternal grandsire, is situated with Champagne extended at its feet, Alsace and the Palatinate of the Rhine on one side, Luxembourg to the north, and Burgundy to the south. Its inhabitants partake much of the firm bold character of the Swiss. The country is mountainous, and is enriched by the vine-clad river of the Moselle; its rocks are replete with mines of copper, silver, lead, and, above all, with iron. The Haute-Lorraine was the principal mineral district in France, and mining was carried on with considerable spirit there in the middle ages--a circumstance which was not forgotten by Mary of Lorraine; indeed it forms a remarkable feature in her Scottish annals, both as Queen-consort and Regent.

Her father, Claud of Lorraine, occupying only the martlet’s place, as the fifth son of a family whose imperial inheritance had dwindled down to an independent dukedom, found himself under the necessity of fulfilling the heraldic proverb by enacting the part assigned to cadets whose shield is distinguished by that migratory emblem.[608] Having no portion in the patrimonial lands of his family, the martlet of Lorraine sought and found fortune in the court of his maternal uncle, the Duke of Gueldres, and, by his good conduct and military talents, early inspired that Prince with a high opinion of his worth. The Duke of Gueldres engaging in the service of Francis I. in the memorable Italian campaign of 1515, Claud followed his banner over the Alps; when the Duke, hearing that the Brabanters had made a perfidious attack on his dominions, returned home in haste to repel them, and confided the command of the ten thousand men he had brought to augment the French army to his youthful nephew of Lorraine. The valor of young Claud turned the fortunes of the day for France at Marignan, where he rallied the panic-stricken _lanz-knechts_, and led them up to the charge again with resistless energy of purpose. In subsequent parts of the engagement he distinguished himself no less, but at length fell from his horse pierced with two-and-twenty wounds. His squire, Adam of Nuremberg, was slain defending him, but his life was preserved through the friendship of a Scotch gentleman in the Flemish service--a descendant, probably, of some protegé or servant of Mary of Gueldres, Queen of Scotland--one Captain Jamie Scott, who extricated his mangled and insensible form from among the dead and dying, and conveyed him to a tent, where his wounds were dressed; and in three months he was so well recovered that, in performance of a superstitious vow he had made during his illness, he performed a pilgrimage on foot, armed _cap-a-pie_, to the shrine of St. Nicholas of Lorraine.[609] Francis I. rewarded him for his signal service on the day of Marignan, with the dukedom of Guise, and made him a knight of his own royal order of St. Michael. Young as Claud was, he was a married man at the period when he thus distinguished himself, if the date of his marriage with Antoinette de Bourbon, the daughter of the Count de Vendôme and Mary of Luxembourg, April 18, 1513, be correct.

Mary of Lorraine was the eldest child of this pair. She was born Nov. 22, 1515, at Bar-le-Duc, the capital of the Duchy of Bar. This castle was built by Frederick, Duke of Lorraine, on an almost inaccessible rock, round which the little river Onain rushes to precipitate itself into the Saux, one of the tributaries of the Marne. A small fragment still exists of this eagle’s nest, where the mother of Mary Stuart first saw the light.

As the Duchess of Guise did not bear a second child for upward of four years, Mary of Lorraine was for that period considered the heiress of the house--no mean inheritance, for the lands and honors of Aumale, Elbœuf, and Mayenne had been added to her father’s appanage. He was also made governor of Burgundy and Champagne. In 1519 the birth of his son Francis, who afterward obtained the soubriquet of Balafré, followed by five others,[610] and three daughters, reduced Mary to a less proud position in the eye of the world. But her beauty, her wit, her quick talents, and stately figure--endowments of which no change of fortune could dispossess her--marked her as a genuine descendant of Charlemagne, and procured for her general admiration as she advanced toward womanhood. Naturally of a most affectionate disposition, so far from regarding the numerous train of brethren whose birth had not only cut her off from a rich inheritance, but reduced her portion to a paltry pittance, with invidious feelings, Mary loved them all too dearly; for it is possible that a Princess may carry the love of kindred and country to an excess fatal to her children, and thus it eventually proved with Mary of Lorraine, when Queen-Regent of Scotland. That she was proud of her parentage and kindred, brought up as she had been in an atmosphere of ancestral romance of history, is not surprising; and however unpopular, we may almost say unconventional, such feelings may be in England and Scotland, when allied with a name which has been irreparably sullied by its connection with the foul massacre of St. Bartholomew and the persecution of the Huguenots, it is full of chivalric associations for those of the same faith and nation.

“Let us,” says an eloquent French writer of the present day,[611] “enter the grand gallery of the Chateau d’Eu, and contemplate the noble portraits of the line of Guise. There we shall view that old Claud of Lorraine clad in his heavy cuirass, bearing his long sword, first dyed in blood at Marignan, having for his cortège and companions his six glorious sons; then we shall see Francis of Lorraine, rival of the Emperor Charles the Fifth, and conqueror of Calais; near him that Cardinal of Lorraine, eloquent as an orator, gallant and magnificent as a prince, yet an ambitious and cruel priest. And there is the grandchild of Duke Claud, Mary Stuart, angel of grief and poesy, whose charming head bore a crown-regnant, and yet fell beneath the axe of the executioner.”

It is remarkable that half of this numerous progeny of Claud Lorraine were devoted to the Church, or rather to her rich archbishoprics and abbacies. For of the six surviving sons of Claud of Lorraine, two were cardinals, and one a Grand-prior of Malta; of his four daughters, two were abbesses.[612] No wonder, therefore, at the pertinacious vehemence with which the sons of the house of Guise championed the abuses of a Church which provided so well for their cadets.

The first husband of Mary of Lorraine was Louis, second Duke of Longueville, the great-grandson and representative of that illustrious Count de Dunois, who covered the stain of an illegitimate birth with the blazonry of his chivalric deeds. Dunois, _le jeune et brave_, as the national songs of ancient France style him, was the natural son of Louis, Duke of Orleans, brother of Charles VI. of France. His patriotic achievements, in assisting to deliver his country from the English yoke, won for him the honor of being legitimated, and ranked as a lawful scion of the royal house of France.

Noble domains had been bestowed on Dunois by Charles VII., but Chasteaudun, always called “the cradle of Dunois,” was his earliest possession;[613] and this was settled on Mary of Lorraine as her dower castle, and seems to have been ever a favorite residence with her. It is now a considerable town on the Loire. The principal building is a vast tower, ninety feet in height, built in the tenth century. From Chasteaudun the road descends toward the banks of the Loire. At a short distance is Vendôme, the seat of the elder line of Bourbon, which vicinity to her mother’s family endeared Chasteaudun to Mary; consequently it is the scene of most events that happened to her when she lived in France.

The great power and wealth of Mary of Lorraine’s first husband was derived from his mother, Marie d’Harcourt, Chatellaine of Tancarville, and as such hereditary constable chamberlaine, and mareschale of Normandy. Tancarville, whose stately remains are familiar to every one voyaging up the Seine, as commanding the estuary narrowing toward Honfleur, was the commencement of a mighty chain of castles and wide domains which gave to their possessor the command of Normandy.

The illustrious descent of Mary from the mingled lines of Charlemagne and Bourbon, her noble person and powerful intellect, were the inducements which led the young Duke of Longueville to wed her. The Duke of Guise, her father, gave her fourscore thousand _livres de tournois_ for her marriage-portion; but this sum was settled entirely upon herself, and remained at her own disposal,[614] as we shall see hereafter, as well as the estates and annuity in which she was jointured by the Duke of Longueville.

The nuptials of the Duke of Longueville and Mary were solemnized on the 4th of August, 1534. It was a marriage very suitable, in all respects, and probably one of mutual affection--for, contrary to the custom of the period, when premature wedlock was contracted by parents between boys and girls in their childhood, the bride and bridegroom were of reasonable age to know the state of their own affections. Mary was in her nineteenth year, and the Duke de Longueville about three or four and twenty. His elder brother was slain at the early age of sixteen, fighting under Francis I., at the disastrous battle of Pavia. By the death of that brother, Louis de Longueville had succeeded to the wealth and honors of the princely house, of which he was, at the time of his marriage, the head. Besides being a ducal peer, he was the Great Chamberlain of France, and expected to become, as his father had been before him, Governor of Normandy. Mary of Lorraine was very happy in her union with this Prince, and lived with him in great state, at his country palaces of Amiens, Rouen, or Chasteaudun. Ten months after their marriage, their conjugal felicity was increased by the birth of an heir. This event took place, October 30, 1535, at the castle of Amiens.[615]

The Duke and Duchess of Longueville were both present at the bridal of James V. and Magdalene of France. Little did the Duchess imagine, when she, as the wife of the representative of the brave Dunois, and the eldest daughter of the house of Guise-Lorraine, proudly took high place among the great ladies of France, near the person of the royal bride, that the crown-matrimonial of Scotland--never to be worn by her on whose finger she saw the enamored bridegroom place the nuptial ring--was destined to encircle her own brow. Far less could she have believed, even if it had been predicted to her, that from her union with that Prince should proceed a line of sovereigns who would reign not only over the Britannic isles from sea to sea, but whose empire, far exceeding that of her mighty ancestor Charlemagne, should extend over India, a considerable section of America, and include vast portions of the habitable globe whose existence was then unknown. Before the anniversary returned of the day that witnessed the nuptials of James and Magdalene, all these apparently impossible events were in an active state of progression.

The dance of death, which followed so closely on the heels of the royal bride of Scotland, hurried away, even more suddenly, one of the noble spectators of the ceremonial, whom no one imagined would have preceded that fragile invalid to the grave--namely, the husband of Mary of Lorraine, Louis II., Duke of Longueville, who deceased June 9, 1537, in the flower of his age, after a brief but happy wedlock of less than three years.

The young widow, who was left with an infant son of twenty months old, and was looking forward to the birth of another fatherless babe at no distant period, was overwhelmed with grief. She withdrew from Paris, and shut herself up in her palace at Amiens, in the deepest seclusion, with the avowed determination of giving up the world forever, and appearing no more at that court, of which her wit and beauty had always rendered her one of the most brilliant ornaments. Having tenderly loved the husband of whom she was thus unexpectedly bereaved, Mary was doubtless in earnest when she made this declaration; but the royal blood of France, which was in her veins, rendered her dependent not on her own will, but that of her sovereign. She was the property of the state; and even before the birth of her infant, Francis I. gave her to understand, that the interests of her country required that she should enter into a fresh marriage in the course of a few months, and that she was destined to succeed his own beloved daughter Magdalene as Queen-consort of Scotland, thus to become a bond of alliance between that realm and France. Some time elapsed before the widowed Duchess could be induced to signify her submission to this arrangement. Francis treated her demurs as perfectly childish and inconsequential, and gave her the rank of a daughter of France, by adoption, in order to render her a suitable bride for his royal son-in-law.

Meantime, the posthumous child of her late husband, the Duke of Longueville, was born, but lived only a few weeks. She named him, after his deceased father, Louis. His death proved an additional source of grief to her.[616] Scarcely had Mary left her lying-in-chamber, when the crown-matrimonial of England, as well as that of Scotland, courted her acceptance. Since the death of her husband in the preceding June, the Kings of England and Scotland had both become widowers, and both were candidates for her hand.[617] James had not only the advantages which his fine person, graceful manners, and being twenty years younger, gave him in the contest over his uncle, but a priority of claim, for the hand of the fair widow had been promised to him by the King of France several weeks before Henry was in a position to demand her; being at that time the husband of Jane Seymour. It appears that, as early as the first week in October, 1537, Margaret Tudor, the Queen-mother of Scotland, had informed the English ambassador to that court, Lord Wharton, that the matrimonial treaty between her son and the Duchess-dowager of Longueville was concluded--that the bride was lusty (meaning lovely) and fair--that she had a jointure of thirty thousand francs from the duchy of Longueville, and one surviving son by the late Duke.[618]

Some discussion had also taken place with Henry himself, on the subject of her journey through England, to which, previously to the death of his Queen, Jane Seymour, he had signified his consent.[619] In less than a month, however, after the unexpected decease of that lady in childbed, and while all the simple folk in England were possessed with the idea of his inconsolable grief for her loss, the royal widower began to amuse himself with almost daily conferences with the French ambassador, of which the object was the selection of a fourth consort.[620] Having communicated to Francis I. his desire of choosing a princess of his lineage for his next queen, that monarch politely replied--“that there was not a maid or widow of suitable degree in France, but should be at his choice.”

The fact of the royal English Bluebeard’s modest requisition, that a bevy of the fairest and noblest of the French ladies should be conducted to Calais or Boulogne for his consideration, and the courteous reproof of Francis I. on that occasion, are too well known to require recapitulation here; however, Henry was assured that, if he would mention any lady in particular, she should be guaranteed to him. Henry, though well aware of her position with regard to his nephew, named the Duchess-dowager of Longueville.

Chatillon told him “she was promised to the King of Scotland.”

Henry intimated his knowledge of Mary’s demurs against entering into a second marriage, by rejoining with a significant emphasis, “_She_ has not promised yet.”

He then insisted that Chatillon should communicate his wish to Francis I., observing, at the same time, “that he would do twice as much for that prince as the King of Scots could, if he would promote his suit.” Francis expressed his regret that the matter was impossible.

“How!” cried Henry indignantly to Chatillon, “did not your master say ‘that there was not a maid or widow of any degree in France, but should be at my service?’”

“Would you marry the wife of another?” was the rejoinder.

“She is not his wife yet,” persisted Henry, who had fallen in love with his nephew’s bride elect from the description he had received of her charms and amiable qualities from Mr. Wallop, one of his envoys to the court of France.[621] Her majestic height, and the noble proportions of her figure, were often the subject of Henry’s discourse.[622] “He is so in love with Madame de Longueville,” writes Chatillon, “that he is always recurring to it. I have told him she is engaged to the King of Scotland, but he refuses to believe it. He says ‘he requires such a queen as she would make, that he admires a tall woman, and wishes for her in particular.’”

Henry spake, moreover, of “her gentle _conditions_” (disposition), having heard she had made a loving and dutiful wife to the Duke of Longueville; and, above all, he thought she would be likely to bring him male children, having borne two sons to her late lord. “Nevertheless,” returned the ambassador, “she is insured to the King of Scots; and if you take your nephew’s wife, the issue of such matrimony would be unlawful.”[623]

Notwithstanding this sensible remonstrance, Henry persisted in his attempt to supplant his nephew, by making a proposal in form to the widowed Duchess herself. She replied that “she was sensible of the great honor he was willing to confer on her, but she was so much absorbed in grief for the loss of her late husband that she had resolved never to take another, but to devote her life to his memory, and the care and education of her children.”[624] This was, of course, before the death of the baby Louis, as she speaks of the offspring of herself and the Duke of Longueville in the plural number.

Now, as the lady made no mention of an engagement to the rival royal suitor, Henry fancied, perhaps, that her rejection of himself, however positive, was merely the result of coyness, and a sort of ceremonial devotion to the memory of the deceased Duke, which would scarcely resist the persevering addresses of a Prince who could lay the queenly diadem of England at her feet. He made himself confident, withal, that a daughter of the aspiring house of Guise-Lorraine would scarcely wed the king of so poor a realm as Scotland, when she might become the consort of a sovereign of his power and importance. That Mary had any choice in the matter is doubtful; but it appears probable that, having previously expressed an insuperable reluctance to enter into a second marriage, and her acceptance of the King of Scotland being made public early in the new year (1538), she entered into that engagement at last not only in compliance with the will of her own sovereign, but to avert the possibility of being, by any change of politics, consigned as a state victim to the royal wife-killer of England, who had a daughter two years older than herself, and was already provided with a male heir to his dominions. She had good cause to shelter herself under the protection of a matrimonial contract with her accomplished suitor, the King of Scotland, as quickly as was consistent with propriety; for King Henry, without paying the slightest regard to her own rejection of his addresses, continued even to the middle of February to demand her of her adopted father and sovereign, with the petulant pertinacity of a spoiled child, and even threatened hostilities with France, under the plea that Francis had promised to give him any lady in his dominions, and yet refused the only one he considered worthy of his choice. The ambassador told him his sovereign was willing to give him his only surviving daughter, Margaret of France; but as she was scarcely thirteen, Henry peevishly rejected her as too young. His excellency suggested a sister of the Duchess of Longueville, “who was,” he said, “much more beautiful than Mary;” but the royal widower could not be persuaded to listen to that proposal; and when the ambassador told him he could have “Mademoiselle de Vendôme,” he flew into a rage, and with characteristic brutality declared, “that he would not take the King of Scotland’s refusings.” This declaration is a proof that Lindsay of Pitscottie is mistaken in affirming that “the Duke of Vendôme’s daughter took sic displeasour at the King of Scotland’s marriage with Magdalene that she deceased immediately thereafter, whereat the King of Scotland was heavily displeased, thinking he was the occasion of that gentlewoman’s death.”

James entered into a lover-like correspondence with the fair widow of Longueville, and after many letters full of princely love and affection had been exchanged between them, the articles of marriage were agreed on.[625] The King of France, in quality of adopted father to Mary, gave a portion similar to that which he had one short year before bestowed on his own daughter Magdalene--namely, a hundred thousand crowns of the Sun.[626]

In the original draught of the preliminary articles of the “Project du Contract de Mariage,” between James V. of Scotland and Mary of Lorraine, her name is erroneously set down Margaret, but she is described “as the widow of the late Duke, and mother of the present Duke de Longueville.” The fortune given by her father, the Duke de Guise, is stated to be at her sole disposal, and, with the royal portion accorded to her by her sovereign, the most Christian King, amounting to 150,000 _livres de tournois_. She is willing to concede to her future spouse, the King of Scotland, as her dower, and to pay to him, or his procurators, on the day of the solemnization of the marriage-ceremony, 100,000 of the said _livres de tournois_ (which are in all other documents described as crowns of the Sun), giving security for paying the other 50,000 on the anniversary of that day. James, on his part, engages, in the event of his dying first, that a third of this sum shall be repaid to her if she brings him children; but if there be no issue, then half the money is to be repaid to her, or her heirs collateral. It is especially covenanted on behalf of the bride, that no portion of King James’s debts, either public or personal, are to fall on her settlement; and on the part of the bridegroom, that she is not to alienate, or carry away, any of the goods, furniture, or ornaments of any of the royal palaces of her said lord, the King of Scotland. She stipulates for jewels, rings, and all suitable decorations, being granted to her in number and value as shall be considered meet by her commissioners.

King James agrees to jointure her with a noble appanage in his realm, which she is to enjoy, after his death, for her sole and separate use; that is to say, the county of Fife, with the fair palace of Falkland garnished and fitted up with all proper furniture, decorations and utensils, for the term of her natural life, whether she brings him children or not. Furthermore, he dowers her in the county of Strathearn, the palaces of Stirling and Dingwall, the county of Ross, the lordships of Galloway, Orkney, and the Isles; and, whether she please to reside in Scotland or return to France, she is to enjoy all the revenues derivable from this magnificent jointure without let or hindrance.[627]

On the 22d of April, Mary of Lorraine writes to the Chancellor of France, thanking him for all the good services he had rendered her in her business. She begs him to have the guard of honor, which it had pleased the King to give her, speedily sent, because she could not be espoused till that matter was arranged.

She signs this letter already in the royal style--“Your good friend, Marie;”[628] and it is written at Chasteaudun.

King James’s ambassadors, for the conclusion of this his second matrimonial treaty with France, were the Lord Maxwell, the Lord Erskine, and Cardinal David Beton, Archbishop of St. Andrews. In consequence of Mary of Lorraine’s kindred with James, through their mutual descent from the ducal house of Gueldres, as well as her near relationship to the late Queen Magdalene, a dispensation from the Pope was necessary. The expenses of the journey for procuring this instrument, &c., are noted in the Exchequer records of Scotland at two hundred crowns. Sixty crowns are also disbursed, on this occasion, “in fees to Buchoel, and other secretaries of the King of France, for the contract of the King’s Grace’s marriage.”[629] These items are quickly followed by that of “ane ring with ane diamond, to be the Queen’s Grace’s spousing ring,” which costs three hundred crowns. Then there is the entry of “forty crowns, fees to officers and minstrels the day of the Queen’s marriage at Chasteaudun.” This, however, only means the ratification of the matrimonial articles; for all accounts agree that the grand ceremonial of her marriage, by King James’s proxy, the Lord Maxwell, was solemnized with great pomp in the church of Nôtre Dame, at Paris, in the presence of the King of France, her parents and kindred.

There is a beautiful historical painting of this ceremonial in the collection of the Earl of Elgin, at Broomhall, in Fifeshire, representing Mary of Lorraine in the act of giving her hand to Lord Maxwell, the gray-haired proxy of the gay and gallant James V. of Scotland.[630] She is represented in this picture as very handsome, with a classic line of features and fair complexion, blue eyes and golden hair. Her figure is tall and commanding, but feminine, with the characteristic length of throat which is observable in her other portraits. Her dress greatly resembles that of her youthful predecessor, Magdalene of France, and is of the like material--white silk brocaded with gold.

Mary of Lorraine, though perseveringly wooed by two kings, had waited to complete her year of widowhood, before she would allow her finger to be encircled by the spousal ring of a second husband. Her royal lord, King James, lacked a month of paying the like complimentary mark of respect to the memory of his first consort; but he was probably apprehensive of being supplanted by his uncle Henry VIII., unless he took prompt steps for securing a bride who was so passionately coveted by that powerful monarch. There is no reason to suppose that Mary wavered for an instant in her choice between the rival Albion Kings. Fortunately for her, her duty to her country and her native sovereign prescribed that she should become the wife of the youngest, the handsomest, and the most agreeable of the twain. Had she been crafty and ambitious, as some historians have painted her, she would have chosen the most powerful, and rejected the matrimonial diadem of Scotland for the more brilliant destiny of a Queen-consort of England. But Mary avoided the glittering snare, and kept her faith to her royal Scotch lover inviolate. More important results than her own personal aggrandizement, or her own private happiness, were involved in her decision. If she had married Henry, it is very possible that descendants of hers by that monarch might now have been on the throne of England, instead of her posterity by James--but in how inferior a position! The consolidation of the realms of England, Ireland, and Scotland, in the strong unity of the triune empire of Great Britain, resulted from the failure of the line of Henry VIII., who by six wives left only three children, all of whom died without posterity. But if the fruitful Mary of Lorraine had filled the place subsequently given successively to three childless Queens--Anne of Cleves, Katharine Howard, and Katharine Parr, the Tudor succession would in all human probability have been continued. England and Scotland would, in that case, have remained under separate rulers, rivals and hereditary foes, rending each other like jealous blood-hounds, with profitless ferocity, instead of rising to national prosperity and greatness through a community of interests, and the commercial relations with the rest of the world, which were established by the sovereigns of the much vituperated name of Stuart,--sovereigns in whom the elder royal line of those philosophical legislators, Alfred and Athelstane, was in the fullness of time replaced on the throne of England, bringing the once hostile realm of Scotland as their most rightful and righteously acquired inheritance; sovereigns who, eschewing the popular but fatal amusement of Continental warfare, sedulously cultivated peace as a science, and planted extensive colonies in all quarters of the world, as safety-valves for carrying off the surplus population which their pacific legislation encouraged.

Henry VIII. was so exasperated at the preference shown by Mary for his nephew of Scotland, that, when requested to grant permission for her to land on the coast of England, in the event of her encountering stormy weather on her passage from France to Scotland, he most ungraciously refused it. King James, warned by this manifestation of hostility, sent a strong fleet and numerous escort to convey his bride, and took the precaution of employing a vessel to survey the English coast before her embarkation.

The parents and haughty kindred of Mary were much elated at a marriage which exalted her to the rank of a crowned head; but to her it involved a sacrifice which could not be otherwise than very painful to the heart of a young mother, that of a separation from her first-born and only surviving child, the little Duke de Longueville, who was between two and three years old--a most attractive age. It was probably the idea of this separation which had rendered her reluctant to entering into a second marriage, since to the handsome and accomplished King of Scotland she could plead no objection.

After the spousal ceremonial had been solemnized, Mary was entitled Queen of Scotland, and was formally consigned to the care and keeping of the Lord Maxwell, King James’s proxy. Attended by a distinguished company of French nobles, and the guard of honor which had been assigned her by her own sovereign, she traveled from Paris to Dieppe with all the state of Queen of Scotland.[631] Annebaut, the Admiral of France, had commission to attend her with a French convoy, which joined the Scotch fleet in the New Haven at Dieppe. There Mary took leave of the friends of her youth, and embarked with her royal retinue for her new country. According to some authorities, besides being disquieted, at her embarkation, by a fierce quarrel between the representative of her august consort, Lord Maxwell, and Cardinal Beton, the favorite and prime-minister of that Prince, the royal bride encountered a severe storm at sea. Lindsay of Pitscottie, who records the dispute, says nothing of the strife of winds and waves; on the contrary, we should infer that the passage was swift and prosperous, from his statement that, “as soon as wind served, he (Lord Maxwell) shipped the Queen, and syne pulled up sails, and sailed to Scotland the nearest way. But, because the Cardinal got no charge in the Queen’s home-coming, and was not letten in the ship with her, he was discontented with the Lord Maxwell, the Admiral, quhilk gendered hatred thereafter. Also the Queen landit very pleasant in a part of Fife called Fifeness, near Balcomie.”[632]

The honest naval peer, who, invested with the twofold dignity of King’s Proxy and Admiral of the fleet, found himself in circumstances to enforce his authority by compelling the haughty primate to submit to his arrangements for the voyage, had doubtless seen sufficient reason for this bold endeavor to preserve his royal mistress--at least for the time she remained under his charge--from the pernicious influence which the subtile ecclesiastic finally succeeded in obtaining over her mind, as well as that of King James.

It is worthy of observation, however, that Sir David Lindsay of the Mount, the venerable cotemporary to whom Pitscottie is supposed to have been indebted for most of his information on the matrimonial affairs of James V., makes no allusion to the affront the Cardinal received on this occasion, in his tragic historical poem on that statesman, where he makes him give the following boastful account of his proceedings:--[633]

“Through me were made triumphant marriages,
That to King James brought profit and pleasance,
When Magdalen our Queen, first daughter of France,
With riches great was into Scotland brought;
After whose death, to France I passed again,
The second Queen homeward I did convoy,
That lovely Princess Mary of Lorraine,
Who was received with great triumph and joy--
So served I our right renowned _Roy_.”

The day on which Mary of Lorraine landed in Scotland was the solemn festival of Trinity Sunday, June 12, 1538,[634] three days after the anniversary of the death of her first husband, the Duke de Longueville. Hearing that her new consort, King James, was at St. Andrews, the distance being within ten miles, she determined to repose herself at Balcomie Castle, the seat of James Laird of Learmont, the Master of the royal Household, till the couriers, who were dispatched to announce her arrival in his dominions, should return with his Majesty’s instructions. But the fifth James of Scotland was not a prince to keep a lady waiting while he was sending messengers with ceremonial greetings, to allow time to his heralds and chamberlains to arrange a programme for their reception, according to the formal solemnity of courtly etiquette. The moment he heard the good tidings that she was so near, he called to horse, and with all his peers, spiritual as well as temporal--who had previously been convened “to meet at St. Andrews in their best array,” to do their devoir to their new queen--rode forth incontinent to give her personal welcome, and bring her on to that city.

The interval of three or four hours which must necessarily have passed over before the gallant bridegroom, however prompt in his movements, could arrive at Balcomie Castle, afforded the bride opportunity for rest, refreshment, and the performance of a toilet suitable to so interesting an occasion as her first meeting with her old acquaintance King James, in the character of his consort, to be followed by her public entrance, as Queen of Scotland, into the polite city of St. Andrews, which was then regarded as a far more civilized place than Edinburgh, being the seat of the arts and sciences, learning and poetry. Much is it to be regretted that no existing records enable us to gratify our fair readers with the precise details of the dress of Mary of Lorraine, on that important day of her life. The Treasury accounts of Scotland, however, bear witness that the King bought anent his marriage with the lovely widow, “ane hat thrummit with gold,” which cost the King’s Grace eight crowns. It was decorated with certain “hostage _federis_” (ostrich feathers), costing him three crowns, likewise with “ane image with ane rubie to the King’s Grace’s bonnet.” There is also an entry “for two ells and a half of quhite claith to lay between the folds of the coat of Venice satin, rich with silver, of the King’s Grace.” The price of the “quhite claith,” which was only some sort of tailor’s lining, was but 2_s._ Scots the ell; but it serves to elucidate the fact that the gallant James wore for his wedding-coat white Venice satin, enriched with silver embroidery.[635]

That pleasant chronicler, Lindsay of Pitscottie, gives the following rich details of the reception of this Queen (Mary) at St. Andrews, and some of the pageants and entertainments that were devised and performed to do her honor. “And first, she was received at the New Abbey gate; upon the east side thereof there was made to her a triumphant arch, by Sir David Lindsay of the Mount, Lion Herald, which caused a great cloud come out of the heavens above the gate, and open instantly; and there appeared a fair lady most like an angel, having the keys of Scotland in her hands, and delivered them to the Queen, in sign and token that all the hearts of Scotland were open to receive her Grace; with certain orations and exhortations made by the said David Lindsay to the Queen, instructing her to serve her God and obey her husband, according to God’s will and commandments. This being done, the Queen was received into her palace, which was called the New Inns, which was well decored against her coming. Also the bishops, abbots, priors, monks, friars, and canons-regular, made great solemnity in the kirk, with masses, songs, and playing of the organs.”

In the same kirk--the then magnificent Abbey Church or Cathedral of St. Andrews--the marriage of the royal pair was publicly solemnized and affirmed, in the presence of the nobles and people of Scotland.[636] This event is recorded by a cotemporary chronicler in these words,--“And there the King’s Grace and the said Marie were _spousit_ with great glory, where the Archbishop of Glasgow, and many of the noblemen of Scotland, were present.”

What a contrast to the mournful desolation to which the despoiled and shattered remains of the fair cathedral are now reduced, must have been its appearance on the memorable festival of the Holy Trinity, 1538, when that goodly pair, James V. and his second French bride, were brought in solemn procession through the great western entrance up the central aisle to the high altar, for the confirmation of the proxy marriage which had been previously celebrated in the church of Nôtre Dame![637]

It is scarcely possible for the historical pilgrim to enter the grass-grown arena of ruins, where once the stately Abbey of St. Andrews rose in its august beauty, without moralizing on the changes that have varied the features of the place since the Culdee missionary, St. Regulus, in the fourth century, first planted a Christian church on the wild sea-cliff of the then barbarous location, which subsequently became the focus whence learning and gospel light irradiated the heathen darkness of Scotland. If that venerable tower which bears the name, and forms the sole surviving monument of its founder--and, like some indomitable chieftain of the olden time, proudly maintains his ground in a lost battle, when the younger and fairer brethren of the host he commanded lie scattered in the dust around him, could find a voice or pen to declare his reminiscences, what lights would break in upon many a dim and doubtful page of royal history! But as biographers are not warranted in overstepping the bounds of their documentary evidences, it is not for us to call up spirits from the vasty deep of past time, by repeopling the fallen nave, aisles, and galleries with gorgeous groups of the high and mighty of the land--the Saxon and the Gael--who were that day mingled with the burghers and loving commonalty of St. Andrews to witness the nuptials of their King; much less may we describe the brave attire and jeweled pomp of the fair and noble ladies, both Scotch and French, who graced the procession of the queenly bride: but this at least we may say, that such visions of purple and of pall, such cloth-of-gold, plumes, banners, and blazonry, can never be seen in old St. Andrews again, save in poetic retrospect of her departed splendor.

When the royal pair had received the nuptial benediction from Cardinal Beton, the Queen retired with her ladies to change her dress, in preparation for the public banquet; and the King withdrew with his lords-in-waiting for the same purpose. According to old Lindsay of Pitscottie, we find that “the King received the Queen in his palace to dinner, where was great mirth all day, till time of supper. On the morn, the Queen passed through the town: she saw the Blackfriars, the Grayfriars, the old college and the new college, and St. Leonards; she saw the provosts of the town and honest burgesses: and when the Queen came to her palace, and met with the King, she confessed unto him ‘that she never saw in France, nor no other country, so many goodly faces in so little room, as she saw that day in Scotland; for,’ she said, ‘it was shown unto her in France that Scotland was but a barbarous country, destitute and void of all good commodities that used to be in other countries, but now she confessed she saw the contrary; for she never saw so many fair personages of men, women, young babes, and children, as she saw that day.’ At these words of the Queen the King greatly rejoiced, and said to her, ‘Forsooth, madam, you shall see better, please God. Ere you go through Scotland, you will see many good-like men and women, with other commodities that will be to your contentment.’”

Mary did not, however, if we may credit the report made by Madame Montrieul, the governess of her predecessor, the late Queen Magdalene, express herself quite so favorably to that lady of her new country as she did to King James. Madame Montrieul, with eight other French dames and maids-of-honor of Queen Magdalene’s household, had remained with honorable entertainment at the Court of Scotland from the time of their royal mistress’ demise, till the arrival of James’s second consort, when they were all prudently dismissed. Passing through England on their way home, they took the opportunity of visiting London, when, being questioned by one of Henry VIII.’s officers “how the new Queen liked Scotland,” Madame de Montrieul somewhat smiled as she answered that “the Queen of Scotland loved France the best.”[638]

Henry VIII. had certainly the wish to make Mary of Lorraine regret her refusal of him and acceptance of his nephew; for when these ladies were in London he had them paid the utmost attention, in expectation that they would report the superior riches and beauty of England when they wrote to the Court of Scotland. The Lord Mayor was ordered to provide them with ten great carps, ten great eels, ten great pikes, a portion of salmon and sturgeon, a certain quantity of tenches and breams, and all the good fishes that could be gotten, with ten sugar loaves, ten wax torches, and white wine and claret in abundance at their dinners and suppers.[639] They were to be lodged at the Lord Mayor’s; but St. Bartholomew’s fair being so near, there was no room for them. However, a meet lodging was provided, and a great banquet made for their entertainment, to which was invited the French ambassador. In return for all these attentions, the French lady was very communicative to the gentleman sent by Henry VIII. to carry her his greetings, and informed him all he asked concerning the death of Queen Magdalene, and the arrival of Mary of Lorraine. There is no doubt but Madame de Montrieul would have preferred the Court of the uncle to that of the nephew; for she descanted eloquently on the fruitfulness and fairness of England, the civility of the men, and the splendor of the palaces, commending Bridewell to the French ambassador above all she had ever seen. The ambassador had promised that she should see York Place (Whitehall Palace), which was far fairer, and for that intent he sent to the keeper of the same. Madame de Montrieul said “that she had a message from the Queen of Scotland to the King of England, if she happened to arrive at the speech of his Grace.”[640] What this message was has never transpired.

The mother-in-law of Mary of Lorraine, Queen Margaret, had been excessively importunate to her brother Henry VIII. for presents on the occasion of the royal wedding, but in vain; she could obtain no answer from England. One day, however, the bride of Scotland thought proper to ask Margaret “whether she ever heard from her brother, the King of England?” The question greatly irritated the royal dowager, and set her indefatigable pen to work in a letter of remonstrance to her brother, which is in parts illegible, owing apparently to Henry having carried it in some letter-case or pocket-book about his person.[641] After lamenting the length of time since she had heard from him, Queen Margaret proceeds to say “that James V., her dearest son, is in good health and prosperity, that there is great love between him and the Queen his wife, and great honor done her; and she, the new Queen, is right richly _become_ into this realm, having good friends who have looked greatly to her honor.”

Henry VIII. was to receive this intimation as a gentle rebuke for his churlish niggardliness to his own sister and her son on the occasion of the wedding, but nothing else could be expected from a rejected man. Margaret probably was kept in profound ignorance of this passage in the history of her brother and her daughter-in-law, or else, devoid of all tact as she was, she could not have dwelt on the married affection of James V. and Mary of Lorraine in the way she does here.

“I trust that she shall prove a wise Princess. Your Grace shall
understand that, since her coming in this realm, I have been
much in her company, and she bears her very favorably to me,
with as good entreatment as may be, and hearty. And she asked
_at_ me, ‘when I heard any word out of your realm from your
Grace?’ I said ‘it was but short time since I heard from you.’

“Now, dearest brother, since there is here another Princess
than I (your only sister), I beseech your Grace that it may be
seen and understood that you will be kind and loving brother to
me, for that will be great reason to the King my son to do the
like.”[642]

The royal records of Scotland bear witness that the Queen-mother received from her son the gift, on occasion of his marriage, of two hundred crowns, under the following notation--“Item, deliverit the penult day of June to the Queenis Grace, the King’s Grace’s dearest mother, ii^c cronis.” The next article notes, on July 28, “Forty crowns were deliverit to the auld Queen’s nurise, at the King’s command.”[643] The gift of two hundred crowns had evidently not satisfied the wants or wishes of Queen Margaret’s Grace. It is possible the deceased young Magdalene may be designated as the “auld Queen.”

King James and his new Queen prolonged their sojourn at St. Andrews nearly a fortnight beyond their honeymoon, for they tarried in that festive city forty days, “with great merriness and games, jousting, running at the lists, archery, hunting, hawking, dancing, and masking, with all other princely disportes.”