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husband, on the death of his father, became FRANCIS THE SECOND,
King of France, the matter grew very serious. For, the young
couple styled themselves King and Queen of England, and the Pope
was disposed to help them by doing all the mischief he could.
Now, the reformed religion, under the guidance of a stern and
powerful preacher, named JOHN KNOX, and other such men, had been
making fierce progress in Scotland. It was still a half savage
country, where there was a great deal of murdering and rioting
continually going on; and the Reformers, instead of reforming those
evils as they should have done, went to work in the ferocious old
Scottish spirit, laying churches and chapels waste, pulling down
pictures and altars, and knocking about the Grey Friars, and the
Black Friars, and the White Friars, and the friars of all sorts of
colours, in all directions. This obdurate and harsh spirit of the
Scottish Reformers (the Scotch have always been rather a sullen and
frowning people in religious matters) put up the blood of the
Romish French court, and caused France to send troops over to
Scotland, with the hope of setting the friars of all sorts of
colours on their legs again; of conquering that country first, and
England afterwards; and so crushing the Reformation all to pieces.
The Scottish Reformers, who had formed a great league which they
called The Congregation of the Lord, secretly represented to
Elizabeth that, if the reformed religion got the worst of it with
them, it would be likely to get the worst of it in England too; and
thus, Elizabeth, though she had a high notion of the rights of
Kings and Queens to do anything they liked, sent an army to
Scotland to support the Reformers, who were in arms against their
sovereign. All these proceedings led to a treaty of peace at
Edinburgh, under which the French consented to depart from the
kingdom. By a separate treaty, Mary and her young husband engaged
to renounce their assumed title of King and Queen of England. But
this treaty they never fulfilled.
It happened, soon after matters had got to this state, that the
young French King died, leaving Mary a young widow. She was then
invited by her Scottish subjects to return home and reign over
them; and as she was not now happy where she was, she, after a
little time, complied.
Elizabeth had been Queen three years, when Mary Queen of Scots
embarked at Calais for her own rough, quarrelling country. As she
came out of the harbour, a vessel was lost before her eyes, and she
said, ‘O! good God! what an omen this is for such a voyage!’ She
was very fond of France, and sat on the deck, looking back at it
and weeping, until it was quite dark. When she went to bed, she
directed to be called at daybreak, if the French coast were still
visible, that she might behold it for the last time. As it proved
to be a clear morning, this was done, and she again wept for the
country she was leaving, and said many times, ‘ Farewell, France!
Farewell, France! I shall never see thee again!’ All this was
long remembered afterwards, as sorrowful and interesting in a fair
young princess of nineteen. Indeed, I am afraid it gradually came,
together with her other distresses, to surround her with greater
sympathy than she deserved.
When she came to Scotland, and took up her abode at the palace of
Holyrood in Edinburgh, she found herself among uncouth strangers
and wild uncomfortable customs very different from her experiences
in the court of France. The very people who were disposed to love
her, made her head ache when she was tired out by her voyage, with
a serenade of discordant music – a fearful concert of bagpipes, I
suppose – and brought her and her train home to her palace on
miserable little Scotch horses that appeared to be half starved.
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Among the people who were not disposed to love her, she found the