CHAPTER IV. THE KING'S CONDUCT REGARDING HIS MOTHER AT HER 1585-1587. ONE of the most difficult and trying circumstances in James's early life, was his situation in regard to his mother-she a Catholic, a suspected murderess, a deposed and imprisoned queen, and he educated a Protestant, and forced, whether he would or not, to be the usurper of her throne. Separated from her at the age of ten months, and living ever since under the charge of her enemies, it was impossible that he could feel towards her the ordinary sensations of a son in regard to a mother: he could entertain no warmer feeling on the subject, than one of vague respect for a personage who, he was told, had brought him into the world, and whom one of the commandments enjoined him to reverence; a sentiment too general, and too much the effect of a mere idea of duty, to approach to filial affection. No intercourse whatever took place betwixt James and his mother till he fell under the con trol of his favourites. A messenger who came to Stirling Castle during Morton's period of power, bearing presents from Mary, and a letter addressed to the Prince of Scotland, was turned back without being permitted to approach the King. Lennox and Arran induced him afterwards to enter into a negotiation with her, for associating her in the government with himself; which scheme, although adverse to the Protestant interests, was by no means without its merits, since it would probably have pacified the Catholic part of the British population, and checked the dangerous machinations of those continental princes who were so perpetually plotting against Queen Elizabeth for the restoration of Mary. But the Raid of Stirling, which put him into the hands of a thoroughly Protestant nobility, rendered it impossible for James any longer to remain on friendly terms with his mother. Soon after that event, June 1586, he was induced to enter into a league, offensive and defensive, with Elizabeth, whereby he bound himself to assist her in defending the British isle from the threatened invasions of the French and Spaniards, and to assist her in resenting any injury which might be offered to her by certain persons, among whom his mother was included by implication; the secret reward for such a sweeping compliance being a pension of five thousand pounds a year, presented under the light of a compensation for the English estate of the Countess of Lennox, his paternal grandmother, but with a hint that it was the proper allowance for the heir of the English crown. James was at once compelled and tempted to throw himself into the Protestant scale against his mother, and did some things which it is to be wished, for his honour as a man, he had not done. He pardoned-he even gave countenance and employment to a churchman nam⚫ ed Archibald Douglas, who was known to have been concerned in his father's death. He also wrote a letter to his mother, in which he positively refused to acknowledge her to be Queen of Scotland, and disclaimed having any community of interests with her. No doubt, both of these actions were matters of political necessity, and were done for the purpose of promoting the interests of the Reformation, in opposition to the Catholics. But, on the other hand, it is precisely these things, and such as these, which supply the Catholics with counter charges of cruelty and want of principle against the Protestants, and which tend so much to place both dogmas on a level, in the eyes of the unprejudiced, in regard to their comparative influence over human conduct. James's disrespectful letter occasioned a pang in Mary's bosom, such as her worst misfortunes, perhaps, had failed to inflict. She, of course, had greater reason to regard him with maternal tenderness, than he had to regard her with filial respect. Her bosom must have remembered the pressure of his infant form, while he, never having had perception of her embraces, could have no similar reason for recalling her image with emotions of tenderness. She felt his unkindness with the acutest pain. Was it for this,' said she, in a letter to the French ambassador, written with that elegance, fluency, and force of expression, peculiar to her, and which place her compositions a-head of all English prose literature before the time of Bolingbroke; was it for this that I have endured so much, in order to preserve to him the inheritance to which I have a just right? I am far from 6 envying his authority in Scotland. I desire no power there; nor wish to set my foot in that kingdom, if it were not for the pleasure of once embracing a son whom I have hitherto loved with tender affection. Whatever he either enjoys or expects, he derived it from me. From him I ne ver received assistance, supply, or benefit of any kind. Let not my allies treat him any longer as a king; he holds that dignity by my consent; and if a speedy repentance do not appease my just resentment, I will load him with a parent's curse, and surrender my crown, with all my pretensions, to one who will receive them with gratitude, and defend them with vigour.' It is believed to be probable, that she proceeded some length with a design of putting this threat into execution, and that she was eventually prevented from doing so by learning, that James had only acted from a necessity which he could not well control. The time was now approaching, when this eminent person was to complete the extraordinary measure of her misfortunes by a violent death. The exertions which her Catholic friends had made in her favour ever since her imprisonment, and the threats which, both in their national and individual capacities, they had fulminated against her oppressor Elizabeth, were the causes of this lamentable catastrophe. Her existence at last seemed incompatible with that of the Protestant religion in Britain; for it was perceived that, so long as she lived, the enemies of the Reformation would never want a rallying-point and a watch-cry. At this very juncture, Spain was mustering her formidable Armada, with the certain purpose of in vading Britain, and exterminating the Protestant faith. Is it to be allowed, said the English; that the existence of our sovereign, our govern ment, and our religion, should be endangered by one person, whom we have it in our power to destroy? The fairness which so conspicuously cha❤ racterizes the English mind, might have disposed them to question the propriety of sacrificing an innocent person, and a stranger who had fled to them for refuge, to even so violent a cause of expediency as this; but there are two cases in which the English have never been able to think with their habitual generosity-their commerce and their religion. In these matters they have hitherto been so utterly selfish and exclusive, as to render their national character highly anomalous in the eyes of foreigners, and even of Scotsmen. In compliance with the wishes of the nation, but much more in compliance with her own ma lignant passions, Elizabeth consented to tarnish the glory of her reign by putting Mary to death. With an express and far-casting view to this event; she had procured, in 1585, an act of Parliament empowering her to try, and pursue to death, any person who should thenceforth be either the cause or the object of a plot against her. Thus she rendered Mary liable not only for her own crimes, but also for those of others-for the guilt of any rash individual who, of his own will, might choose to act in her favour against Elizabeth. This being made law, it was easy for the English ministers to cause a few headstrong young men, the chief of whom was the noted Anthony Babington, to engage in a conspiracy against her. They were seized and executed. Mary was then accused of |