the castle not discovered the deceit, the Lord Gordon's fate would have been sealed. Mary was content with keeping him prisoner, till a change in her administration restored him to favour, and to the forfeited estates and honours of his father.

One other incident connected with these tragical events is worth recording. Means having been taken for the preservation of Huntly's body, it was sent by sea to Leith, and lay for several months at Holyroodhouse. In the Parliament which met in May 1563, these melancholy remains were produced, to have sentence of forfeiture pronounced against them. To obviate if possible this additional calamity, the Countess of Huntly, widow of the deceased, appeared before the Parliament, and with the spirit of a Gordon requested to be heard in her late husband's defence. The request was refused; Huntly's castles and houses were rifled of their property, his friends and vassals fined, and many escheats granted to those who had assisted in crushing this once noble family. *

* In Buchanan's Cameleon, a severe satire, written at the request of his patron the Earl of Murray, when that nobleman quarrelled with Secretary Maitland, we have the following ridiculous account of the secret motives which led to this disastrous northern expedition. "The Queen, by advice of her uncles, devised to destroy the Earl of Murray, thinking him to be a great bridle to refrain her appetites, and impediment to live at liberty of her pleasure; not that he ever used any violence anent her, but that his honesty was so great that she was ashamed to attempt any thing indecent in his presence. She, then, being deliberate to destroy him, by the Earl of Huntly, went to the north and he in her company; and howbeit the treason was opened plainly, and John Gordon lying

Murray having now no farther occasion for the Queen's presence at Aberdeen, the Court moved southwards on the 5th of November. On her way home, she visited Dunottar Castle, Montrose, Arbroath, Dundee, Stirling, and Linlithgow. She arrived at Edinburgh on the 22d, having been absent upwards of three months. It is much to be regretted, that she ever undertook this northern expedition. Though she had little or no share in its guilt, she had allowed herself to be made an effectual tool in the hands of Murray, who was now more powerful than any minister of Mary's ought to have been. He had forced the Earl of Bothwell into exile; he had brought the Duke of Chatelherault and Arran into disgrace; and hav-. ing accomplished the death of the courageous Huntly, he had obtained for himself and friends the greater part of that nobleman's princely estates and titles. Besides, he was more popular among the Reformers than ever, for the destruction of the Gordon family had been long wished for by them. In short, though without the name, he was the King of Scotland, and his sister Mary was his subject.

not far off the town (Aberdeen) with a great power, and the Earl of Murray expressly lodged in a house separate from all other habitation, and his death by divers ways sought, this Cameleon (Maitland) whether for simpleness or for lack of foresight, or for boldness of courage, I refer to every man's conscience that doth know him, he alone could see no treason, could fear no danger, and could never believe that the Earl of Huntly would take on hand such an enterprise. This statement, while it gives some notion of the dependence to be placed on Buchanan's accuracy when influenced by party feelings, betrays, at the same time, the important secret, that Maitland saw and felt the injustice of Huntly's persecution. -Buchanan s Cameleon, p. 9.

CHAPTER X.

CHATELARD'S IMPRUDENT ATTACHMENT, AND KNOX'S PERSEVERING HATRED.

MARY returned from her Northern expedition towards the conclusion of the year 1562. The two following years, 1563 and 1564, undistinguished as they were by any political events of im portance, were the quietest and happiest she spent in Scotland. Her moderation and urbanity had endeared her to her people; and, in her own well regulated mind, existed a spring of pure and abiding satisfaction. Nevertheless, vexations of various sorts mingled their bitterness in her cup of sweets. An occurrence which took place early in 1563, demands our attention first.

The poet Chatelard has been already mentioned as one of those who sailed in Mary's train, when she came from the continent. He had attached himself to the future Constable of France, the Duke Danville, and was a gentleman of good family and for tune, being by the mother's side the grand-nephew of the celebrated Chevalier Bayard. The manly beauty of his person was not unlike that of his an cestor; and, besides being well versed in all the

more active accomplishments of the day, he had softened and refined his manners by an ardent cultivation of every species of belles-lettres. It was this latter circumstance that gained for him the occasional favourable notice of Mary. A poetess herself, as much by nature as by study, her heart warmed towards those who indulged in the same delightful art. Chatelard wrote both in French and Italian; and, finding that Mary deigned to read and admire his productions, he seems thenceforth to have made her the only theme of his enamoured and too presumptuous Muse. To the Queen this was no uncommon compliment. She received it, gracefully, and sometimes even amused herself with answering Chatelard's effusions. This condescension almost turned the young poet's brain. He had left Scotland with the Duke Danville, and Mary's other French friends, at the end of the year 1561; but he eagerly seized the opportunity afforded him, by the civil wars in France, to return before twelve months had elapsed. The Duke Danville sent him to Mary's court, there is every reason to believe, to press upon her attention once more his own pretensions to her hand. But Chatelard, in the indulgence of his mad passion, forgot the duty he owed his master; and, for every word he spoke in prose for the Duke, he spoke in verse twenty for himself. Mary, long accustomed to this species of adulation, and looking upon flattery as a part of a poet's profession, smiled at the more extravagant flights of his imagination, and forgot them as soon as heard. These smiles, however, were fatal to Chatelard. They tempted him,"

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says Brantome, "to aspire, like Phaeton, at ascend> ing the chariot of the sun. In February 1563, he had the audacity to steal into the Queen's bedchamber, armed with sword and dagger, and attempted to conceal himself till Mary should retire to rest. He was discovered by her maids of honour; and Mary, though much enraged at his conduct, was unwilling, for a first offence, to surrender him to that punishment which she knew would be inflicted were it known to her Privy Council. She was contented with reprimanding him severely, and ordering him from her

presence.

This leniency was thrown away upon the infatuated Chatelard. Only two nights afterwards, the Queen having, in the interval, left Edinburgh for St Andrews, he again committed the same offence. As she went to St Andrews by the circuitous route of the Queensferry, she slept the first night at Dumfermline, and the second at Burntisland. Here Chatelard insolently followed the Queen into her bedroom, without › attempting any concealment, and assigned, as the motive for his conduct, his desire to clear himself from the blame she had formerly imputed to him. Mary commanded him to leave her immediately, but he refused; upon which she saw the necessity of calling for assistance. The Earl of Murray was at hand, and came instantly. The daring boldness of Chatelard's conduct could no longer be concealed; the proper legal authorities were sent for from Edinburgh; the poet was tried at St Andrews, and was condemned to death. He was executed on the 22d of February,