8 2 7 9 1 5 3 4 12 13 11 10 6 V A, T V M E R I T E R A S [31] "G. Conaei vita Mariae Stuartae, 1624", in _Jebb_, vol. ii, p. 15. [32] Diary, 24 Nov., 1665. [33] Letter from Randolph to Cecil, 15 May, 1563. [34] P. 87. [35] Con, in _Jebb_, vol. ii, p. 15. [36] P. 125. [37] _Ibid._ [38] In _Jebb_, l. c. [39] _Basilikon Doron_, p. 125, edit. 1603. [40] _Compotum Thesaurarii Reginæ Scotorum_, 30 Nov., 1565. [41] Thomson's _Collection of Inventories_, pp. 238-40. [42] _Inventories_, p. cxxi. [43] Letter to Cecil, in Haynes's _State Papers_, pp. 509-10. [44] _De Regno et Regali Potestate_, edit. 1612, pp. 279-80. [45] _Inventories_, pp. xc, 141, 148. [46] Prince Labanoff, _Lettres de Marie Stuart_, t. iv, pp. 228-9. [47] Cf. "Le Vray Rapport de l'exécution faicte sur la personne de la Royne d'Escosse", published by Teulet, _Papiers d'Etat_, &c., p. 884. [48] _History of the Reformation_, vol. ii, p. 373. [49] _Inventories_, p. lxix. THE FOUR MARYS Reference is seldom made to the Queen's Marys, the four Maids of Honour whose romantic attachment to their royal mistress and namesake, the ill-fated Queen of Scots, has thrown such a halo of popularity and sympathy about their memory, without calling forth the well-known lines: Yestreen the Queen had four Maries, The night she'll hae but three; There was Marie Seton, and Marie Beton, And Marie Carmichael and me. To those who are acquainted with the whole of the ballad, which records the sad fate of the guilty Mary Hamilton, it must have occurred that there is a striking incongruity between the traditional loyalty of the Queen's Marys and the alleged execution of one of their number, on the denunciation of the offended Queen herself, for the murder of an illegitimate child, the reputed offspring of a criminal intrigue with Darnley. Yet a closer investigation of the facts assumed in the ballad leads to a discovery more unexpected than even this. It establishes, beyond the possibility of a doubt, that, of the four family-names given in the stanza as those of the four Marys, two only are authentic. Mary Carmichael and Mary Hamilton herself are mere poetical myths. Not only does no mention of them occur in any of the lists still extant of the Queen's personal attendants, but there also exist documents of all kinds, from serious historical narrative and authoritative charter to gossiping correspondence and polished epigram, to prove that the colleagues of Mary Beton and Mary Seton were Mary Fleming and Mary Livingston. How the apocryphal names have found their way into the ballad, or how the ballad itself has come to be connected with the Maids of Honour, cannot be determined. There is, however, in Knox's _History of the Reformation_, a passage which has been looked upon as furnishing a possible foundation of truth to the whole fiction. It is that in which