to obtain from pope Pius V. At the break of day she arrayed herself in rich, but becoming apparel; and, calling together her servants, she ordered her will to be read, and apologised for the smallness of their legacies from her inability to be more generous. Following the arrangement she had previously made, she then dealt out to them her goods, ward-robe, and jewels. To Bourgoin her physician she committed the care of her will, with a charge that he would deliver it to her principal executor, the duke of Guise. She also entrusted him with tokens of her affection for the king of France, the queenmother, and her relations of the house of Lorrain. Bidding now an adieu to all worldly concerns, she retired to her oratory, where she was seen sometimes kneeling at the altar, and sometimes standing motionless with her hands joined, and her eyes directed to heaven. While she was thus engaged, Thomas Andrews, the high sheriff, announced to her that the hour for execution was arrived. She came forth dressed in a gown of black silk; her petticoat was bordered with crimson velvet; a veil of lawn bowed out with wire, and edged with bone lace, was fastened to her caul, and hung down to the ground; an Agnus Dei was suspended from her neck by a pomander chain; her beads were fixed to her girdle; and she bore in her hand a crucifix of ivory. Amidst the screams and lamentations of her women she descended the stairs; and in the porch she was received by the earls of Kent and Shrewsbury with their attendants. Here, too, she met Sir Andrew Melvil the master of her household, whom her keepers had long debarred from her presence. Throwing himself at her feet, and weeping aloud, he deplored his sad destiny, and the sorrowful tidings he was to carry into Scotland. After she had spoken to Melvil, she besought the two earls that her servants might be treated with civility, that they might enjoy the presents she had bestowed upon them, and that they might receive a safe conduct to depart out of the dominions of Elizabeth. These slight favors were readily granted. She then begged that they might be permitted to attend her to the scaffold, that they might be witnesses of her behaviour at ner death. To this request the earl of Kent discovered a strong reluctance. He said that they would behave with an intemperate passion; and that they would practise superstitious formalities, and dip their handkerchiefs in her blood. She replied that she was sure that none of their actions would be blameable; and that it was but decent that some of her women should be about her. The earl still hesitating, she was affected with the insolent and stupid indignity of his malice, and exclaimed, I am cousin to your mistress, and descended from Henry VII. I am a dowager of France, and the anointed queen of Scotland.' The earl of Shrewsbury interposing, it was agreed that she should select two of her women who might assist her in her last moments, and a few of her men-servants, who might behold her demeanour, and report it. She entered the hall where she was to suffer, and advanced with an air of grace and majesty to the scaffold, which was built at its farthest extremity. The spectators were nu merous. Her magnanimous carriage, her beauty, which was still striking, and her matchless misfortunes, affected them. They gave way to contending emotions of awe, admiration, and pity. She ascended the scaffold with a firm step and a serene aspect, and turned her eye to the block, the axe, and the executioners. The spectators were dissolved in tears. A chair was placed for her, in which she seated herself. Silence was commanded; and Beale read aloud the warrant for her death. She heard it attentively, yet with a manner from which it might be gathered that ner thoughts were employed upon a subject more important. Dr. Fletcher, taking his station opposite to her without the rails of the scaffold, counselled her to repent of her crimes; and, while he inveighed against her attachment to popery, he threatened her with everlasting fire if she should delay to renounce its errors. His behaviour was highly indecent and coarse. Twice she interrupted him with great gentleness. But he pertinaciously continued his exhortations. Raising her voice she commanded him with a resolute tone to with-hold his indignities and menaces, and not to trouble her any more about her faith. I was born, said she, in the Roman Catholic religion; I have experienced its comforts during my life, in the trying seasons of sickness, calamity, and sorrow; and I am resolved to die in it. The two earls, ashamed of his savage obstinacy, admonished him to desist, and to content himself with praying for her con version. He entered upon a long prayer; while Mary falling upon her knees, and disregarding him, employed herself in devotion. Her women now assisted her to disrobe; and, the execu tioners offering their aid, she repressed their forwardness, observing that she was not accustomed to be attended by such servants, nor to be undressed before so large an assembly. Her upper garments being laid aside, she drew upon her arms a pair of silk gloves. Her women and men servants burst out into loud lamentations. She put her finger to her mouth to admonish them to be silent, and then bad them a final adieu with a smile that seemed to console, but that plunged them into deeper woe. She kneeled resolutely before the block, and said, 'In thee, O Lord! do I trust; let me never be confounded.' She covered her eyes with a linen handkerchief in which the eucharist had been enclosed; and stretching forth her body with great tranquillity, and fitting her neck for the fatal stroke, called out, Into thy hands, O God! I commit my spirit.' The executioner, from unskilfulness, or from inquietude, struck three blows before he separated her head from her body. He held it up mangled with wounds, and streaming with blood; and her hair, being discomposed, was discovered to be already gray. The dean of Peterborough alone cried out, So let the enemies of Elizabeth perish. The earl of Kent alone, in a low voice, answered, Amen. All the other spectators were melted into the tenderest sympathy and sorrow. Her women hastened to protect her dead body from the curiosity of the spectators; and solaced themselves with the thoughts of mourning over it undisturbed when they should retire, and of laying it out on its funeral garb. But the two earls prohibited them from discharging these melancholy yet pleasing offices to their departed mistress, and drove them from the hall. Bourgoin her physician applied to them that he might be permitted to take out her heart for the purpose of preserving it, and of carrying it with him to France. But they refused his entreaty with anger. The executioners carried her remains into an adjoining apartment; and, tearing a cloth from an old billiard table, thus covered that form, once so beautiful. The block, the cushion, the scaffold, and the garments, which were stained with her blood, were consumed with fire. Her body, after being embalmed and committed to a leaden coffin, was buried with royal splendor and pomp in the cathedral of Peterborough. See MARY. Elizabeth, who had treated her like a criminal while she lived, seemed disposed to acknowledge her for a queen when she was dead. On the death of his mother the full government of the kingdom devolved on James her son: and Elizabeth, justly apprehensive of his resentment for her treatment of his mother, wrote him a letter, in which she disclaimed all knowledge of the fact. James had received intelligence of the murder before the arrival of this letter, sent by one Cary. The messenger was stopped at Berwick by an order from the king, telling him that, if Mary had been executed, he should proceed at his peril. James shut himself up in Dalkeith Castle, to indulge himself in grief; but the natural levity and imbecility of his mind prevented him from acting in any degree as became him. Instead of resolutely adhering to his first determination of not allowing Cary to set foot in Scotland, he in a few days gave his consent. that he should be admitted to an audience of certain members of his privy council, who took a journey to the borders on purpose to wait upon him. In this conference, Cary demanded that the league of amity between the two kingdoms should be inviolably observed. He said that his mistress was grieved at the death of Mary, which had happened without her consent; and, in Elizabeth's name, offered any satisfaction that James could demand. The Scottish commissioners treated Cary's speech and proposal with becoming disdain. They observed that they amounted to no more than to know whether James was disposed to sell his mother's blood; adding that the Scottish nobility and people were determined to revenge it, and to interest in their quarrel the other princes of Europe. Upon this Cary delivered to them the letter from Elizabeth, together with a declaration of his own concerning the murder of the queen. This reception of her ambassador threw Elizabeth into the utmost consternation. She was apprehensive that James would join his force to that of Spain, and entirely overwhelm her; and, had the resentment or the spirit of the king heen equal to that of the nation, it is probable that the haughty English princess would have been made severely to repent her perfidy and cruelty. It does not, however, appear that James had any serious intention of calling Elizabeth to an account for the murder of his mother; for which, perhaps, his natural imbecility may be urged as an excuse, though it is more probable that his own necessity for money had swallowed up every other consider ation. By the league formerly concluded with England it had been agreed that Elizabeth should pay an annual pension to the king of Scotland. James had neither economy to make his own revenue answer his purposes, nor address to get it increased. He was therefore always in want; and, as Elizabeth had plenty to spare, her friendship became a valuable acquisition. To this consideration, joined to his view of ascending the English throne, must be ascribed the little resentment shown by him to the atrocious conduct of Elizabeth, who continued to exert her usual arts of dissimulation and treachery. She prosecuted and fined secretary Davidson and lord Burleigh for the active part they had taken in Mary's death : their punishment was indeed much less than they deserved, but they certainly did not merit such treatment at her hands. Walsingham, though equally guilty, escaped by pretending indisposition, or perhaps because the queen had still occasion for his services. By her command he drew up a long letter addressed to lord Thirlston, king James's prime minister; in which he showed the necessity of putting Mary to death, and the folly of attempting to revenge it. He boasted of the superior force of England to that of Scotland; showed James that he would for ever ruin his pretensions to the English crown, by involving the two nations in a war; that he ought not to trust to foreign alliances; that the Roman Catholic party were so divided among themselves that he could receive no assistance from them, even supposing him so ill advised as to change his own religion for that of popery, and they would not trust his sincerity. Lastly, he attempted to show that James had already discharged all the duty towards his mother and his own reputation that could be expected from an affectionate son and a wise king; that his interceding for her, with a concern so becoming nature, had endeared him to the kingdom of England; but that it would be madness to push his resentment farther. This letter had all the effect that could be desired. James gave an audience to the English ambassador; and being assured that his blood was not tainted by the execution of his mother for treason against Elizabeth, but that he was still capable of succeeding to the crown of England, he consented to make up matters, and to address the murderer of his mother by the title of loving and affectionate sister. The The reign of James, till his accession to the crown of England by Elizabeth's death in 1603, affords little matter of moment. His scandalous concessions to Elizabeth, and his constant applications to her for money, filled up the measure of royal meanness. Ever since the expulsion of Mary, the country had in fact been reduced to the condition of an English province. sovereign had been tried by the queen of England and executed for treason; a crime, in the very nature of the thing, impossible, unless Scotland had been in subjection to England; and, to complete all, the contemptible successor of Mary thought himself well off that he was not a traitor too to his sovereign the queen of England. During the reign of James the religious disturbances which began at the Reformation, and that violent struggle of the clergy for power, which never ceased till the Revolution in 1688, went ou with great violence. Continual clamors were raised against popery, at the same time that the very fundamental principles of popery were held, nay, urged in the most insolent manner, as the effects of immediate inspiration. These were the total independence of the clergy on every earthly power, at the same time that all earthly powers were to be subject to them. Their fantastic decrees were supposed to be binding in heaven; and they took care that they should be binding on earth; for whoever had offended so far as to fall under a sentence of excommunication was declared an outlaw. This circumstance must have contributed to disturb the public tranquillity in a great degree. But, besides this, the weakness of James's government was such that, under the name of peace, the whole kingdom was involved in the miseries of civil war; the feudal animosities revived, and slaughter and murder prevailed all over the country. James, fitted only for pedantry, disputed, argued, modelled, and remodelled the constitution to no purpose. The clergy continued their insolence, and the laity their violences upon one another; at the same time that the king, by his unhappy credulity in the operation of demons and witches, declared a most inhuman and bloody war against poor old women, many of whom were burnt for the imaginary crime of conversing with the devil. In autumn 1600 happened a remarkable couspiracy against the liberty, if not the life of the king. The attainder and execution of the earl of Gowrie for the part he acted in the raid of Ruthven, and for subsequent practices of treason, have been already mentioned. His son, however, had been restored to his paternal dignity and estates, and had in consequence professed gratitude and attachment to the king. But the Presbyterian clergy continued to express their approbation of the raid of Ruthven, and to declare on every occasion that in their opinion the earl had suffered by an unjust sentence. One of the most eminent and popular of that order of men was preceptor to the younger Gowrie and his brothers, who, from their frequent conversations with him, must have been deeply impressed with the belief that their father was murdered. The passion of revenge took possession of their breasts; and having invited the king from Falkland to the earl of Gowrie's house at Perth, under the pretence of showing him a secret treasure of foreign gold, which he might lawfully appropriate to his own use, an attempt was made to keep him close prisoner, with threats of putting him to instant death, if he should make any attempt to regain his liberty. The reality of this conspiracy has been questioned by many writers, because they could not assign a rational motive for Gowrie's engaging in so hazardous an enterprise; and some have even insinuated that the conspiracy was entered into by the king against Gowrie, to get possession of his large estates. It has been shown, however, by Arnot, in his Criminal Trials, that the conspiracy was the earl's, who seems to have intended that the king should be cut off by the hand of an assassin; and the of same writer has made it appear probable that he entertained hopes, in the then distracted state of the nation not ill founded, of being able to mount the throne of his murdered sovereign. Mr. Cant, however, gives a very different opinion on this event. The late learned and judicious lord Hailes, and the celebrated Dr. William Robertson, also totally discredit the story. From this danger, whether real or fictitious, James was res cued by his attendants the duke of Lennox, the earl of Mar, Sir Thomas Erskine, afterwards earl of Kellie, and Sir John Ramsay who was ennebled; and Gowrie and his brother, falling in the struggle, were attainted by an act of parliament, their arms cancelled, and their whole estates forfeited and annexed to the crown. The most memorable transaction of James's reign, and that most to his honor, is the effort he made for civilising the western islands. For this purpose he instituted a company of gentlemen adventurers, to whom he gave large privileges: the method he proposed was to transport numbers of the islandcrs to the low countries of Scotland, and to give their islands, which were very improveable, in fee to such of his lowland subjects as should choose to reside in the islands. The experiment was to be made upon the Lewes, a long range the Ebude; whence the adventurers expelled Murdoch Macleod, the tyrant of the inhabitants Macleod, however, kept the sea; and, intercepting a ship which carried one of the chief adven turers, he sent him prisoner to Orkney, after putting the crew to the sword. Macleod way soon after betrayed by his own brother, and hanged at St. Andrews. The history of this new undertaking is rather dark; and the settlers themselves seem to have been defective in the arts of civilisation. The arrangements they made were considered by the inhabitants as very oppressive; and one Norman, of the Macleod family, attacked and subdued them so effectually that they not only consented to yield the property of the islands to him, but engaged to obtain the king's pardon for what he had done. In 1589 king James married the princess Anne of Denmark, daughter of king Christian IV., to receive whose hand he made a voyage to that country: a visit which his father-in-law twice repaid. In 1603 James was called to the throne of England by the death of Elizabeth, and the same year took a final leave of Scotland. From this period the history of Scotland, being blended with that of England, is included in the article GREAT BRI TAIN. Dr. Robertson depicts, in his best manner, the arrival in Scotland of the actual tidings of the accession of James to the English throne-his journey--and the revolutions in the constitution of Scotland consequent upon his accession. The latter have been sufficiently important to justify a considerable extract in this place from the pen of so able a writer : 'As soon as she [queen Elizabeth] had breathed her last,' observes our author, 'the lords of the privy council proclaimed James king of England. All the intrigues carried on by foreigners in favor of the Infanta, all the cabals formed within the kingdom to support the titles of lady Arabella and the earl of Hartford, disap ex On the 5th of April he began his journey with a splendid, but not a numerous train; and next day he entered Berwick. Wherever he came, immense multitudes were assembled to welcome him; and the principal persons in the different counties through which he passed, displayed all their wealth and magnificence in entertainments prepared for him at their houses. Elizabeth reigned so long in England that most of her subjects remembered no other court but hers, and their notions of the manners and decorums suitable to a prince were formed upon what they had observed there. It was natural to apply this standard to the behaviour and actions of their new monarch, and to compare him at first sight with the queen on whose throne he was to be placed. James, whose manners were tremely different from hers, suffered by the comparison. He had not that flowing affability by which Elizabeth captivated the hearts of her people; and, though easy among a few whom he loved, his indolence could not bear the fatigue of rendering himself agreeable to a mixed multitude. He was no less a stranger to that dignity with which Elizabeth tempered her familiarity. And, instead of that well-judged frugality with which she conferred titles of honor, he bestowed them with an undistinguishing profusion, that rendered them no longer marks of distinction, or rewards of merit. But these were the reflections of the few alone; the multitude continued their acclamations; and amidst these James entered London on the 7th of May, and took peaceable possession of the throne of England. Thus were united two kingdoms, divided from the earliest accounts of time, but destined, by their situation, to form one great monarchy. By this junction of its whole native force, Great Britain has risen to an eminence and authority in Europe, which England and Scotland, while separate, could never have attained.' peared in a moment; the nobles and people, they exulted at the king's prosperity, were melted forgetting their ancient hostilities with Scotland, into sorrow by these tender declarations. and their aversion for the dominion of strangers, testified their satisfaction with louder acclamations than were usual at the accession of their native princes. Amidst this tumult of joy, a motion made by a few patriots, who proposed to prescribe some conditions to the successor, and to exact from him the redress of some grievances, before they called him to the throne, was scarcely heard; and Cecil, by stifling it, added to his stock of merit with his new master. Sir Charles Percy, brother of the earl of Northumberland, and Thomas Somerset, the earl of Worcester's son, were despatched to Scotland with a letter to the king, signed by all the peers and privy councillors then in London, informing him of the queen's death, of his accession to the throne, of their care to recognise his title, and of the universal applause with which the public proclamation of it had been attended. They made the utmost haste to deliver this welcome message; but were prevented by the zeal of Sir Robert Carey, lord Hunsdon's youngest son, who, setting out a few hours after Elizabeth's death, arrived at Edinburgh on Saturday night, just as the king had gone to bed. He was immediately admitted into the royal apartment, and, kneeling by the king's bed, acquainted him with the death of Elizabeth, saluted him king of England, Scotland, France, and Ireland; and, as a token of the truth of the intelligence which he brought, presented him a ring, which his sister, lady Scrope, had taken from the queen's finger after her death. James heard him with a decent composure. But, as Carey was only a private messenger, the information which he brought was not made public, and the king kept his apartment till the arrival of Percy and Somerset. Then his titles were solemnly proclaimed; and his own subjects expressed no less joy than the English at this increase of his dignity. As his presence was absolutely necessary in England, where the people were extremely impatient to see their new sovereign, he prepared to set out for that kingdom without delay. He appointed his queen to follow him within a few weeks. He committed the government of Scotland to his privy-council. He entrusted the care of his children to different noblemen. On the Sunday before his departure he repaired to the church of St. Giles's, and after hearing a sermon, in which the preacher displayed the greatness of the divine goodness in raising him to the throne of such a powerful kingdom without opposition or bloodshed, and exhorted him to express his gratitude, by promoting to the utmost the happiness and prosperity of his subjects; the king rose up, and, addressing himself to the people, made many professions of unalterable affection towards them; promised to visit Scotland frequently; assured them that his Scottish subjects, notwithstanding his absence, should feel that he was their native prince, no less than when he resided among them; and might still trust that his ears should be always open to their petitions, which he would answer with the alacrity and love of a parent. His words were often interrupted by the tears of the whole audience; who, though Our historian's reflections, on the alteration produced in the political constitution of Scotland by this event, regard the state of the aristocracy; the new consequence given to the commons; the first establishment of Presbyterianism; and the gradual assimilation of the Scottish to the English nation in matters of taste, genius, and literature: 'The Scots,' he says, had so long considered their monarchs as next heirs to the English throne, that they had full leisure to reflect on all the consequences of their being advanced to that dignity. But dazzled with the glory of giving a sovereign to their powerful enemy, relying on the partiality of their native prince, and in full expectation of sharing liberally in the wealth and honors which he would now be able to bestow, they attended little to the most obvious consequences of that great event, and rejoiced at his accession to the throne of England, as if it had been no less beneficial to the kingdom than honorable to the king. They soon had reason, however, to adopt very different sentiments, and from that period we may date a total alteration in the political constitution of Scotland. The feudal aristocracy, which had been sub verted in most nations of Europe by the policy of their princes, or had been undermined by the progress of commerce, still subsisted with full force in Scotland. Many causes had contributed gradually to augment the power of the Scottish nobles; and even the Reformation, which, in every other country where it prevailed, added to the authority of the monarch, had increased their wealth and influence. A king, possessed of a small revenue, with a prerogative extremely limited, and unsupported by a standing army, could not exercise much authority over such potent subjects. He was obliged to govern by expedients; and the laws derived their force, not from his power to execute them, but from the voluntary submission of the nobles. But though this produced a species of government extremely feeble and irregular; though Scotland, under the name, and with all the outward ensigns of a monarchy, was really subject to an aristocracy, the people were not altogether unhappy; and, even in this wild form of a constitution, there were principles which tended to their security and advantage. The king, checked and overawed by the nobles, durst venture upon no act of arbitrary power. The nobles, jealous of the king, whose claims and pretensions were many, though his power was small, were afraid of irritating their dependents by unreasonable exactions, and tempered the rigor of aristocratical tyranny, with a mildness and equality to which it is naturally a stranger. As long as the military genius of the feudal government remained in vigor the vassals both of the crown and of the barons were generally not only free from oppression, but were courted by their superiors, whose power and importance were founded on their attachment and love. But, by his accession to the throne of England, James acquired such an immense accession of wealth, of power, and of splendor, that the nobles, astonished and intimidated, thought it vain to struggle for privileges which they were now unable to defend. Nor was it from fear alone that they submitted to the yoke: James, partial to his countrymen, and willing that they should partake in his good fortune, loaded them with riches and honors; and the hope of his favor concurred with the dread of his power, in taming their fierce and independent spirits. The will of the prince became the supreme law in Scotland; and the nobles strove, with emulation, who should most implicitly obey commands which they had formerly been accustomed to contemn. Satisfied with having subjected the nobles to the crown, the king left them in full possession of their ancient jurisdiction over their own vassals. The extensive rights vested in a feudal chief became in their hands dreadful instruments of oppression, and, the military ideas on which these rights were founded being gradually lost or disregarded, nothing remained to correct or to mitigate the rigor with which they were exercised. nobles, exhausting their fortunes by the expense of frequent attendance upon the English court, and by attempts to imitate the manners and luxury of their more wealthy neighbours, multiplied exactions upon the people, who durst hardly utter complaints which they knew would The never reach the ear of their sovereign, nor move him to grant them any redress. From the union of the crowns to the Revolution, in 1688, Scotland was placed in a political situation of all others the most singular and the most unhappy: subjected at once to the absolute will of a monarch, and to the oppressive jurisdiction of an aristocracy, it suffered all the miseries peculiar to both these forms of government. Its kings were despotic; its nobles were slaves and ty rants; and the people groaned under the rigor ous domination of both. During this period, the nobles, it is true, made one effort to shake off the yoke, and to regain their ancient independence. After the death of James, the Scottish nation was no longer viewed by our monarchs with any partial affection. Charles I., educated among the English, discovered no peculiar attachment to the kingdom of which he was a native. The nobles, perceiving the sceptre to be now in hands less friendly, and swayed by a prince with whom they had little connexion, and over whose councils they had little influence, no longer submitted with the same implicit obedience. Provoked by some encroachments of the king on their order, and apprehensive of others, the remains of their ancient spirit began to appear. They complained and remonstrated. The people being, at the same time, violently disgusted at the innovations in religion, the nobles secretly heightened this disgust; and their artifices, together with the ill conduct of the court, raised such a spirit that the whole nation took arms against their sovereign, with a union and animosity of which there had formerly been no example. Charles brought against them the forces of England, and notwithstanding their own union, and the zeal of the people, the nobles must have sunk in the struggle. But the disaffection which was growing among his English subjects prevented the king from acting with vigor. A civil war broke out in both kingdoms; and after many battles and revolutions, which are well known, the Scottish nobles, who first began the war, were involved in the same ruin with the throne. At the restoration Charles II. regained full possession of the royal preroga tive in Scotland; and the nobles, whose estates were wasted, or their spirit broken, by the calamities to which they had been exposed, were less able and less willing than ever to resist the power of the crown. During his reign, and that of James VII., the dictates of the monarch were received in Scotland with the most abject submission. The poverty to which many of the nobles were reduced rendered them meaner slaves and more intolerable tyrants than ever. The people, always neglected, were now odious, and loaded with every injury on account of their attachment to religious and political principles, extremely repugnant to those adopted by their princes. The Revolution introduced other maxims into the government of Scotland. To increase the authority of the prince, or to secure the privileges of the nobles, had hitherto been almost the sole object of our laws. The rights of the people were hardly ever mentioned, were disregarded, or unknown. Attention began, hence |