Mary Stuart | Page 4

for him.
In Scotland, the unlucky name is "Stuart". Robert I, founder of the race,
died at twenty-eight of a lingering illness. Robert II, the most fortunate
of the family, was obliged to pass a part of his life, not merely in
retirement, but also in the dark, on account of inflammation of the eyes,
which made them blood-red. Robert III succumbed to grief, the death
of one son and the captivity of other. James I was stabbed by Graham
in the abbey of the Black Monks of Perth. James II was killed at the
siege of Roxburgh, by a splinter from a burst cannon. James III was
assassinated by an unknown hand in a mill, where he had taken refuge
during the battle of Sauchie. James IV, wounded by two arrows and a
blow from a halberd, fell amidst his nobles on the battlefield of
Flodden. James V died of grief at the loss of his two sons, and of
remorse for the execution of Hamilton. James VI, destined to unite on
his head the two crowns of Scotland and England, son of a father who
had been assassinated, led a melancholy and timorous existence,
between the scaffold of his mother, Mary Stuart, and that of his son,
Charles I. Charles II spent a portion of his life in exile. James II died in
it. The Chevalier Saint-George, after having been proclaimed King of
Scotland as James VIII, and of England and Ireland as James III, was
forced to flee, without having been able to give his arms even the lustre

of a defeat. His son, Charles Edward, after the skirmish at Derby and
the battle of Culloden, hunted from mountain to mountain, pursued
from rock to rock, swimming from shore to shore, picked up half naked
by a French vessel, betook himself to Florence to die there, without the
European courts having ever consented to recognise him as a sovereign.
Finally, his brother, Henry Benedict, the last heir of the Stuarts, having
lived on a pension of three thousand pounds sterling, granted him by
George III, died completely forgotten, bequeathing to the House of
Hanover all the crown jewels which James II had carried off when he
passed over to the Continent in 1688--a tardy but complete recognition
of the legitimacy of the family which had succeeded his.
In the midst of this unlucky race, Mary Stuart was the favourite of
misfortune. As Brantome has said of her, "Whoever desires to write
about this illustrious queen of Scotland has, in her, two very, large
subjects, the one her life, the other her death," Brantome had known her
on one of the most mournful occasions of her life--at the moment when
she was quitting France for Scotland.
It was on the 9th of August, 1561, after having lost her mother and her
husband in the same year, that Mary Stuart, Dowager of France and
Queen of Scotland at nineteen, escorted by her uncles, Cardinals Guise
and Lorraine, by the Duke and Duchess of Guise, by the Duc d'Aumale
and M. de Nemours, arrived at Calais, where two galleys were waiting
to take her to Scotland, one commanded by M. de Mevillon and the
other by Captain Albize. She remained six days in the town. At last, on
the 15th of the month, after the saddest adieus to her family,
accompanied by Messieurs d'Aumale, d'Elboeuf, and Damville, with
many nobles, among whom were Brantome and Chatelard, she
embarked in M. Mevillon's galley, which was immediately ordered to
put out to sea, which it did with the aid of oars, there not being
sufficient wind to make use of the sails.
Mary Stuart was then in the full bloom of her beauty, beauty even more
brilliant in its mourning garb--a beauty so wonderful that it shed around
her a charm which no one whom she wished to please could escape,
and which was fatal to almost everyone. About this time, too, someone

made her the subject of a song, which, as even her rivals confessed,
contained no more than the truth. It was, so it was said, by M. de
Maison-Fleur, a cavalier equally accomplished in arms and letters:
Here it is:--
"In robes of whiteness, lo, Full sad and mournfully, Went pacing to and
fro Beauty's divinity; A shaft in hand she bore >From Cupid's cruel
store, And he, who fluttered round, Bore, o'er his blindfold eyes And
o'er his head uncrowned, A veil of mournful guise, Whereon the words
were wrought: 'You perish or are caught.'"
Yes, at this moment, Mary Stuart, in her deep mourning of white, was
more lovely than ever; for great tears were trickling down her cheeks,
as, weaving a handkerchief, standing on the quarterdeck, she who was
so grieved to set out, bowed farewell to those