It is by her action in forwarding to Elizabeth the letter in which Mary Stuart summed up all the charges brought against her rival, that the royal captive's doom is hastened, that Chastelard's death is avenged. It would be the height of hypercritical absurdity to find fault with the poet for the use which he has made of a character which can scarcely be called historical. Nevertheless, as it is often from fiction alone that we gather our knowledge of the minor characters of history--of those upon which more serious records, engrossed with the jealousies of crowned heads, with the intrigues of diplomatists and the wrangles of theologians, have no attention to bestow--it does not seem altogether useless at least to point out how little resemblance there is between the Mary Beton of real life and the Nemesis of the drama. FOOTNOTES: for MARY BETON [91] _Inventories_, xlviii. [92] _Calendar of State Papers relating to Scotland_, vol. i, p. 208. [93] _Inventories_, p. xlviii. [94] _Inventories_, p. 124. [95] _Calendar of State Papers relating to Scotland_, vol. ii, p. 825. [96] _Inventories_, p. 63. MARY SETON "The secund wyf of the said Lord George (Marie Pieris, ane Frenche woman, quha come in Scotland with Quene Marie, dochter to the Duik of Gweis) bair to him tua sonnis and ane dochter ... the dochter Marie." This extract from Sir Richard Maitland's _History of the House of Seton_ gives us the parentage of the fourth of the Maries.[97] She was the daughter of a house in which loyalty and devotion to the Stuarts was traditional. In the darkest pages of their history the name of the Setons is always found amongst those of the few faithful friends whom danger could not frighten nor promises tempt from their allegiance. In this respect Mary Seton's French mother was worthy of the family into which she was received. At the death of Marie de Guise, Dame Pieris transferred not only her services, but her love also, to the infant Queen, and stood by her with blind devotion under some of the most trying circumstances of her short career as reigning sovereign. The deposition of French Paris gives us a glimpse of her, attending on Mary and conferring secretly with Bothwell on the morning after the King's murder. At a later date we find her conspiring with the Queen's friends at what was known as the council "of the witches of Atholl", and subsequently imprisoned, with her son, for having too freely expressed her loyalty to her mistress.[98] We may, therefore, almost look upon it as the natural result of Mary Seton's training, and of her family associations, that she is pre-eminently the Queen's companion in adversity. It seems characteristic of this that no individual mention occurs of her as bearing any part in the festivities of the Court, or sharing her mistress's amusements. Her first appearance coincides with the last appearance of Mary Livingston in connection with Mary Stuart.