led to that horrid transaction, or even of the incident itself, since they are already so well known. An allusion to the condition in which Mary was at the time, and the effect which it might be supposed to have upon her and her offspring, is alone necessary in this place. It would appear as one of the most flagrant proofs of the barbarism of even the best class of society in that age, that Darnley (who, it must be remembered, was educated in England) and his associates should have chosen to execute the murder of their victim in the Queen's presence, and while she was in such a peculiar condition. Entering, as it must be well recollected, her small supper-chamber, where she was sitting with Rizzio and one or two other persons, they bent their eyes upon him with a threatening expression, and, on his taking refuge behind his mistress, immediately proceeded to seize him. Mary, at various periods of her life, showed that she possessed an intrepidity of spirit not unworthy of her gallant lineage. But in that terrible scene, when her supper-table was overturned, the lights almost extinguished, and a bended pistol presented to her breast by one ruffian, while another stabbed the man who clung in despair to her person, she gave way to a sensation of alarm, which it appears she did not forget even after the birth of her child. It was her own fear, on that dreadful night, that her child could scarcely survive the agitation into which she had been thrown; and among the invectives which she launched against Lord Ruthven, the chief conspirator, one referred to the evils he might have thus brought upon his country. Fortunately, the misfortune which she apprehended, did not ensue. But it was always supposed,

by the contemporaries of her offspring, that he owed the weakness of his limbs, and his antipathy to the sight of arms, to the agitation into which his mother was thrown on the night of Rizzio's slaughter. *

The dissension consequent upon this event, be twixt Mary and Darnley, was partially stilled at the time when she was about to give birth to her child. On this account, when she retired to Edinburgh Castle, (which she chose to make the scene of her accouchment, in consideration of the security it afforded her), he was admitted to lodge in the same fortress, along with her approved friends, the Earls of Argyle, Atholl, Murray, and Mar. In a palace which she had recently built within that place of strength, and which still exhibits the initials of her own and her

* It was latterly insinuated against James, by the less prominent claimants of the English throne, that he was the child of Rizzio, and not of Darnley; a scandal to which some events of his mother's life, and the view which one party took of her character, gave a certain degree of coun tenance. So lately as the time of the Commonwealth, an enemy of the royal family ingeniously remarked, in allusion to his nickname of "the British Solomon," that he eminently deserved that title, seeing he was the son of David the Fiddler, and the father of Rehoboam (meaning Charles), who had the kingdom rent from him. But that Mary was guilty with a man described to have been so old and unamiable as Rizzio, is what no historian, save the malignant Buchanan, has ever imputed to her. Nor does chronology allow of such a supposition:-The marriage of the royal pair took place less than eleven months before the birth of their offspring; and it is quite inconceivable that the Queen could have commenced a guilty connection, so soon after her union to a man whom she warmly loved, and with whom, indeed, she had no quarrel till after she was far advanced in pregnancy.

husband's names, mingled in the loving shape of a cipher over the door-way, she was delivered of her son, between nine and ten in the morning of Wednesday, the 19th of June 1566. The room where this event took place is so extremely small, that it is yet the wonder of every one who sees it, how it could have afforded the proper accommodation. Indeed, there never perhaps was a King, even among those who have risen to their thrones from a plebeian rank, who was born in an apartment so limited in dimension, and so humble in appearance, as that in which the first monarch of Great Britain was ushered into the world. It measures no more than the length of two ordinary walkingcanes in any direction; and it is somewhat irregular in shape. That Mary should have selected so narrow a room for her retirement under such circumstances, certainly gives a curious view either of her character, or of the manners of the age and country in which she lived. *

About two o'clock that afternoon, Lord Darnley came to visit the Queen, and expressed a desire to see the child. 66 My lord," said Mary, as her attendants presented their precious charge to his arms, "God has given you and me a son. Darnley stooped and kissed the child,

* Yet it is not perhaps so strange as that she should have permitted the guns of the castle, within a few yards of her bed, to be fired off immediately after the birth. They were fired as a matter of course, for the purpose of announcing the event to her subjects in the city below, and as a token of public congratulation. During the evening, bon-fires were lighted on the neighbouring hills; and as the intelligence spread throughout the country, it was received everywhere with similar testimonials of the popular satisfaction.

a blush mantling on his cheek, as the novel idea of paternity rushed to his mind. Mary then took her son into her arms, and, withdrawing a cloth which partially covered his face, said to her husband," My lord, here I protest to God, and as I shall answer to him at the great day of judgment, this is your son, and no other man's son. He is indeed so much your son, that I only fear it will be the worse for him hereafter." Then turning to Sir William Stanley, Darnley's principal English servant, Mary added, "This is the son who, I hope, shall first unite the two kingdoms of Scotland and England." Sir William answered, " Why, madam! shall he succeed before your Majesty and his father?" "Alas!" Mary only answered, and the answer was expressive enough; "his father has broken to me. Darnley, who still stood near, heard this with pain. "Sweet madam!" said he, " is this your promise that you made, to forget and forgive all ?"-" I have forgiven all," said the Queen; "but will never forget. What if Fawdonside's pistol had had shot? What would have become of him and me both! And what estate would you have been in? God only knows. But we may suspect. "Madam," answered Darnley," these things are all past. 66 Then," said the Queen, "let them go." +

The Queen here alluded to the conduct of Andrew Ker of Faldownside at the death of Rizzio. He had presented a cocked pistol at her breast; and it is also recorded of him, that he separated Rizzio from her, by bending back his mid-finger, till he could no longer hold her waist for pain.

This curious anedote is from an abridgement of a history of his own times, written by Lord Herries. The

Darnley would almost appear, from the circumstances of this interview, to have been a man of gentler and more tractable spirit, than is generally supposed of him. The blush which came upon his cheek as his child was presented to him, the kiss he imprinted on its lips, and his soft answer to the Queen's irritating remark regarding Rizzio's murder, are all traits of an amiable nature. Perhaps the following anecdote of him, now printed, like the preceding, for the first time, will deepen the favourable impression we thus receive of his character.

Darnley had an uncle in Clydesdale,-George Douglas of Todsholes, otherwise called of Parkhead'- -a personage noted in Scottish history for having inflicted the first wound upon Rizzio, and who was generally known by the epithet of the Postulate of Aberbrothwick, from his having a prospect of eventually enjoying the temporalities of that rich abbacy. Though this man was only a natural son of the Earl of Angus, father to Darnley's mother, Darnley always styled him "Uncle;" and the royal pair occasionally visited him at Todsholes. One day, about the time when the quarrels of Mary and her husband first became publicly observed, Darnley was fishing on a lake near Todsholes, there being no other individual in the boat but Rizzio. Douglas had perceived, or been informed, that the Italian was the sole cause of his nephew's troubles; and, with that fatal disposition common to all Scotsmen at the time, by which the interests of a kinsman were held

original is in the Scots College of Douay, and the abridgement in the Advocates' Library, Edinburgh.