The Press Saturday, June 13, 1925. The Daughter of Debate.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18407, 13 June 1925, Page 14

The Press Saturday, June 13, 1925. The Daughter of Debate.

"Her letters to Bothwol], seized in "thoir silver caskot after Mary's fall, "cannot be advanced against her. The "absenco of their originals robß them "of credit, and the balance of authority "finds them in measure forged to prove "her particeps criminis of Darnley's "death. On her actions she must bo "judged, and they condemn her as "consenting partner of a reckless man "whose actions she must have known "bent to one determined end, to sum"mon murder to release her from one

"she loathed, and give her to ono sho "loved." That considered statement written by a historian of repute represents the facts ■of tho casket letters controversy as known in 1920, and seoms on tho face of it sufficiently to disposo of tho claim advanced in a recent cable that Mary Stuart's good namo has boon vindicated by a demonstration, based upon a scientific examination of original records, documents, inks, parchments, seals and handwriting, that the whole contents of the caßket were forged by Maitland of Lethington. But tho Darnley-Both-weU episode, though it was the crisis of. her fate, is far from the only incident in Mary Queen of Scots' career that has seized on the popular imagination, and given her an abiding placo among the outstanding women of the world's history. There is tho murder of Eizzio, the

harsh imprisonment ih Lochleven Castle, immortalised by the genius of Sir Walter Scott,' tho flight across the Border, tho weary years of detention at Tutbury, Wingfield, Coventry, Chatswortli,; Sheffield, at the hands of Elizabeth,, who had professed through the mouth of Cecil that "thoro had been "nothing- sufficiently produced nor '' shown by the Scots against the Queen '• their sovofeign, whoreby tho Queen "of England should conceive or take ''any evil opinion, of the Queen lier "good Bister "for anything yet seen." There is the long series of conspiracies against Elizabeth's life culminating in the Babington plot, the definite implication of-Mary by two letters of un-

doubted authenticity,' the trial under, terms of the;new-mado ; Treason Act, and the closing scene at Fothoringay wjiere Bhe displayed bo fearless and untroubled a spirit i& tho presence of the headman's axe..' Throughout she inspires -loyal affection in the hearts of those that surround her. Throughout she finds men ready to" did for her sako. . On the face of it, if we concentrate too closely on the casket letters inci-

dent, the whole thing seems inexplicable. Bnt the key to the riddle lies in the fact that thero are two Marys—Mary the erring and suffering woman, and .Mary the symbol of a great, if losing, cause. It-is against the background of contemporary history that her figuro looms so large. It was her representative character as the protagonist in the West of an aiiciont faith and of a dwindling tradition that threw a softening veil over tlio darker -stains- in her life, and . touched her, figure with the hues of undying romance. Her • stormy lifo beat itself but in an age even more stormy. "Bound her larger fissues clashed in conflict. From ''her birth nations fought foit her. Had '.'she :not been born, Pinkie had not "been lost/ She stood between Western "Christendom and a new faith. On her "France, Spain, and Bomo staked their "cause. She clutched at Elizabeth's "throne, and, if successful, drew back '.'the first renegade from the fold of "Holy Church. England recovered, ! "heresy perished in the West, in Scot- ! "land; in the Low Countries. This "was her mission." French on her

mother's side, brought up in Prance under Guise influence, for a brief space Queen of the short-lived ]?rancis, sho returned, still in her teens, to her Scottish throne and found tho Beformation well established and John Knox, harsh a'nd austere, as ho was bravo and earnest, in tho ascendant; found a society of great feudal barons, "Encore "sauvages et d6j3t formalistcs," avid of power, greedy for spoil, forming and dissolving unstable combinations with varying, aims and bowildering changes of policy and porson; found, too, a growing distrust of France, and' a firm body of opinion in favour- of closer union with England. By birth, as the elder surviving grandchild of Margaret, sister of Henry VIII., she was, so strango aro tho ways of fate, next in succession to the throne of England. But in her eyes, and in the eyes of the great party of the Counter-Beformation —it was the age of the Council of Trent, the first seal of the Jesuits, tho treaty' of Gateau Cambrfisis—Elizabeth was illegitimate and a usurper of the English throne, Already ia Prancgj

Mary had given bitter offence by quartering with, lier royal arms the arms of England. In Scotland she moderated her elaims and pressed unavailingly for recognition as heiress. She had her supporters south of the Border. It was opon to her to narrow her aims and strengthen her position by throwing in her lot with the rising tido of Protestantism. If Paris had been worth a Mass to the Huguenot King, London might be worth winning on terms reversed. The whole situation was difficult, and asked for the wariest walking. For some years Mary played her part with no lack of wisdom, and it may be said of her that she ruled as well as reigned. Her marriago with Darnley was a calculated move to strengthen her claim on the English inheritance. ne, too, was a grandchild of Margaret's. But like herself he was a child of the old Church. The marriago alienated the reformers, and drove her half-brother, Moray, from her side. It proved bitterly unhappy, led to the assassination in her presence of her favourite secretary, the Italian, David Eizzio, and culminated in Darnley's murder at Kirk o' Field, and tho moment of insensato passion which led her to marry his suspected murderer. Passion confounded policy. As the marriage with Darnley had alienated the reformers, so the marriage with Bothwell, "not with Mas.s, "but with preaching," alienated her Catholic supporters. Her punishment was swift and heavy. Neither from Franco, Spain, nor Rome could she find countenanco. "Ono cannot as a rule "expect much from persons who ar l ) "the slaves of their own passions" wa3 tho caustic comment of a Papal secretary. Her English friends fell from her. Her kingdom rose against her. Bothwell passod out of her lifo into the darkness of his Danish prison. She was forced under protest to resign hor crown. Again she found a following, threw and lost her last stake at Langside, and seeking shelter in> England found a captivity which lasted nineteen

years, and closed upon tho scaffold. And yet during thoßo dreary years, when all seems lost, circumstances once more mako her a dominating figure, Once more she is the daughter of debate; the centre of all the forces of unrest in England, the focus of all the ramifying plots of the tangled skein of French and Spanish and Papal policy directed tp turn time backward and restore the days of yesterday. Even in death sho is still potent, and Philip launches his foredoomed armada as her avenger and her heir. Small wondoi' that a tale so strange, so tragical, of such vicissitudes, such inconsistency, and such persistence keeps an undying grip on the world's memory.