powerful leaders of the Reformed Church, who were bitter upon her
amusements, however innocent, and denounced music and dancing as
works of the devil. John Knox himself often lectured her,
violently and angrily, and did much to make her life unhappy. All
these reasons confirmed her old attachment to the Romish religion,
and caused her, there is no doubt, most imprudently and dangerously
both for herself and for England too, to give a solemn pledge to
the heads of the Romish Church that if she ever succeeded to the
English crown, she would set up that religion again. In reading
her unhappy history, you must always remember this; and also that
during her whole life she was constantly put forward against the
Queen, in some form or other, by the Romish party.
That Elizabeth, on the other hand, was not inclined to like her, is
pretty certain. Elizabeth was very vain and jealous, and had an
extraordinary dislike to people being married. She treated Lady
Catherine Grey, sister of the beheaded Lady Jane, with such
shameful severity, for no other reason than her being secretly
married, that she died and her husband was ruined; so, when a
second marriage for Mary began to be talked about, probably
Elizabeth disliked her more. Not that Elizabeth wanted suitors of
her own, for they started up from Spain, Austria, Sweden, and
England. Her English lover at this time, and one whom she much
favoured too, was LORD ROBERT DUDLEY, Earl of Leicester – himself
secretly married to AMY ROBSART, the daughter of an English
gentleman, whom he was strongly suspected of causing to be
murdered, down at his country seat, Cumnor Hall in Berkshire, that
he might be free to marry the Queen. Upon this story, the great
writer, SIR WALTER SCOTT, has founded one of his best romances.
But if Elizabeth knew how to lead her handsome favourite on, for
her own vanity and pleasure, she knew how to stop him for her own
pride; and his love, and all the other proposals, came to nothing.
The Queen always declared in good set speeches, that she would
never be married at all, but would live and die a Maiden Queen. It
was a very pleasant and meritorious declaration, I suppose; but it
has been puffed and trumpeted so much, that I am rather tired of it
myself.
Divers princes proposed to marry Mary, but the English court had
reasons for being jealous of them all, and even proposed as a
matter of policy that she should marry that very Earl of Leicester
who had aspired to be the husband of Elizabeth. At last, LORD
DARNLEY, son of the Earl of Lennox, and himself descended from the
Royal Family of Scotland, went over with Elizabeth’s consent to try
his fortune at Holyrood. He was a tall simpleton; and could dance
and play the guitar; but I know of nothing else he could do, unless
it were to get very drunk, and eat gluttonously, and make a
contemptible spectacle of himself in many mean and vain ways.
However, he gained Mary’s heart, not disdaining in the pursuit of
his object to ally himself with one of her secretaries, DAVID
RIZZIO, who had great influence with her. He soon married the
Queen. This marriage does not say much for her, but what followed
will presently say less.
Mary’s brother, the EARL OF MURRAY, and head of the Protestant
party in Scotland, had opposed this marriage, partly on religious
grounds, and partly perhaps from personal dislike of the very
contemptible bridegroom. When it had taken place, through Mary’s
gaining over to it the more powerful of the lords about her, she
banished Murray for his pains; and, when he and some other nobles
rose in arms to support the reformed religion, she herself, within
a month of her wedding day, rode against them in armour with loaded
pistols in her saddle. Driven out of Scotland, they presented
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themselves before Elizabeth – who called them traitors in public,
and assisted them in private, according to her crafty nature.
Mary had been married but a little while, when she began to hate