The World's Greatest Books [Volumes 1-15, 17-20]

V.--Langside and After

Cursed by crowds, who reviled her as a murderess and adulteress, Mary was led, a captive, to her capital. By night, to save her from the fury of the mob, she was smuggled out of Edinburgh and lodged, a prisoner, in the island fortress of Lochleven. During her long incarceration there the story of her wrongs and sufferings stirred the Catholics at home and abroad in her favour, and her friends and foes were again sharply divided according to their religious creeds. The rulers of Scotland, too, headed by her brother Murray, were far from easy; for the Catholics were strong, and foreign crowned heads looked black at those who kept a sovereign in durance. So attempts were made to conciliate her by proposing marriage with some harmless Scottish noble, conjoined with her abdication. But her heart was high still, and she would bate no jot of her queenship; rather would she exercise her glamour upon her gaolers and escape to power and sovereignty again. Her fascination was irresistible, and Murray's half-brother, young George Douglas, a mere lad, fell a victim to her smiles. Once more Mary fell in love, and proposed to marry the youth who had endeavoured to aid her escape.

Murray was shocked, and had his brother expelled the castle; but in April 1568 the faithful George planned her evasion of the guard and joyfully welcomed her on the shore of the lake. To her standard flocked the Catholic lords, and, safe at Hamilton, Mary, again a queen, swore vengeance upon her foes. On her way with her army to Dumbarton she met Murray's force at Langside, near Glasgow. She had been strong at Carberry Hill with Bothwell at her side. Here she was weak, for no man of weight or character was with her, and as her men wavered she turned rein and fled.

For sixty miles on bad roads she struggled on, almost without sleep, and living on beggar's fare. With no adviser or woman near her, in her panic and despair she took the fatal resolve and crossed the Solway into Elizabeth's realm, trusting to the magnanimity of the woman whom she had tried to ruin and supplant. Again her heart had deceived her. Elizabeth had no pity for a vanquished foe, and for the rest of her miserable life, well nigh a score of years, Mary Stuart was a prisoner. But in all those years she never ceased to plot and plan for the overthrow of Elizabeth and her own elevation to the Catholic throne of all Britain.

Amidst her many weapons, that of marriage and her personal fascination were not forgotten. Twice, at least, she tried to make her love affairs serve her political ambition. Poor, feckless Norfolk was drawn by his vanity and ambition into her net. Love epistles, breathing eternal devotion, passed between them, but murder was behind it all--the murder of Elizabeth, and the subjection of England to Spain to work Mary's vengeance on her foes, and Norfolk lost his head deservedly.

Again she dreamed of marrying the Christian champion, Don Juan of Austria, and conquering and ruling over a Catholic England. But this plot, too, was discovered, and Don Juan, like all the rest of Mary's lovers, died miserably. Mary thenceforward was the centre of Spain's great conspiracy against England's queen, but she sought the end no more by love; for that had failed her every time she tried. She and her cause were beaten because her heart of fire was pitted against a heart of ice, and she lost all because she loved too much.