[173] _madlie_, maidenly. [174] _proport_, proportion. [175] _affatethe_, proclaims. [176] Probably _Sandyford_, close to the river Cart, between Paisley and Renfrew. A tradition, still current in the neighbourhood, asserts that Mary once slept at Crookston Castle then belonging to the Lennox family. It may have been on this occasion, documentary evidence of any other opportunity for a visit to the Castle not being extant. [177] _to wage_, to raise. [178] _trayns_, bands. [179] Capt. Cokbourn to Cecil. [180] _dome_, judgment, opinion. [181] P. 135. THE FIRST "STUART" TRAGEDY AND ITS AUTHOR Mary, Queen of Scots, was beheaded in 1587. Fourteen years later there was published in Rouen a play which bore the title of _Tragédie de la Reine d'Escosse_, and which had for its subject the condemnation and death of Elizabeth's unfortunate prisoner. The author styled himself Anthoine de Montchrestien sieur de Vasteville; but it was alleged by his enemies that he was nothing more aristocratic than the son of an apothecary of Falaise called Mauchrestien. He had, however, the good fortune to be brought up, though in what connection is uncertain, with two lads belonging to a family of authentic nobility; and by the time he reached his twentieth year, he had the training and education of a gentleman of the period. With the sword which he assumed as the emblem of the class to which he claimed to belong, he adopted the fashionable readiness to draw it on the slightest provocation. His first recorded encounter, however, very nearly proved his last. With the odds of three to one against him, he was grievously wounded and left for dead on the highway. But he recovered, and, in the true spirit of a Norman, consoled himself for his defeat and his injuries by suing the chief of his adversaries, the Baron de Gouville. That he obtained damages to the amount of 12,000 livres may be taken as a proof that all the blame was not on his side. The success of this legal action encouraged him to take proceedings against one of his trustees, who had failed to do his duty by him. A further indemnity of 1000 livres was the result. About this time, too, he married a rich widow whose good graces he had previously secured by helping her to win a lawsuit in which her husband had been the defender.