CONTENTS OF VOL. I. Mary's Birth, and subsequent residence at the French Court, with a Sketch of the State of Society and Manners in France, during the sixteenth cen- PREFACE. A new work on the subject of Mary Queen of Scots runs an eminent risk of being considered a work of supererogation. No period of British history has been more elaborately illustrated than that of her life and reign. She ascended the Scottish throne at a time replete with interest; when the country had awakened from the lethargy of ages, and when the gray dawn of civilization, heralding the full sunshine of coming years, threw its light and shade on many a bold and prominent figure, standing confessed in rugged grandeur as the darkness gradually rolled away. It was a time when national and individual character were alike strongly marked,-a time when Knox preached, Buchanan wrote, Murray - The plotted, and Bothwell murdered. mailed feudal barons,-the unshrinking Reformers, founders of the Presbyterian Church, and mailed in mind, if not in body, the discomfited, but the still rich and haughty ecclesiastics of the Romish faith, the contemporaries and followers of the stern Cardinal Beaton,-all start forth so vividly before the mind's eye, that they seem subjects better suited for the inspired pencil of a Salvator Rosa, than for the soberer pen of History. Mary herself, with her beauty and her misfortunes, shining among the rest like the creation of a softer age and clime, fills up the picture, and rivets the interest. She becomes the centre round which the others revolve; and their importance is measured only by the influence they exercised over her fate, and the share they had in that strange concatenation of circumstances, which, as if in mockery of the nobility of her birth, and the splendour of her expectations, rendered her life miserable, and her death ignominious. There is little wonder if such a theme, though in itself inexhaustible, should have exhausted the energies of many. Yet the leading events of Mary's reign still give rise to frequent doubts and discussions; and the question regarding her character, which has so long agitated and divided the literary world, remains undetermined. It is indeed only they who have time and inclination to dismantle the shelves of a library, and pore over many a contradic tory volume,-examine many a perplexing hypothesis, and endeavour to reconcile many an inconsistent and distracting statement,-who are entitled to pronounce upon her guilt or innocence. Not that it is meant to be asserted, that unpublished manuscripts and documents, calculated to throw new light upon the sub, ject, slumber in the archives of Government, or among the collections of the learned, which have hitherto escaped the notice of the antiquarian and the scholar. On the contrary, there is every reason to believe, that all the papers of value which exist, have already been found, and given to the world. After the voluminous publications of Anderson, Jebb, Goodall, Haynes, Hardwicke, Strype, Sadler, and Murdin, it is by no means probable, that future historians will discover additional materials to guide them in their narrative of facts. But few |