Life of Mary Queen of Scots, Volume 2 (of 2)Bell, Henry Glassford
History
Life of Mary Queen of Scots, Volume 2 (of 2)
Bell, Henry Glassford
Mary, Queen of Scots, 1542-1587
solemnly, in a letter she wrote to her ambassador at Paris,--"As for the
King, our husband, God knows always our part towards him."--"God willing,
our doings shall be always such as none shall have occasion to be offended
with them, or to report of us any way but honourably."[21] So far,
therefore, from there being any thing uncommon or forced in her journey to
Glasgow, nothing could be more natural, or more likely to have taken
place. "Darnley's danger," observes Dr Gilbert Stuart, with the simple
eloquence of truth, "awakened all the gentleness of her nature, and she
forgot the wrongs she had endured. Time had abated the vivacity of her
resentment, and after its paroxysm was past, she was more disposed to weep
over her afflictions, than to indulge herself in revenge. The softness of
grief prepared her for a returning tenderness. His distresses effected it.
Her memory shut itself to his errors and imperfections, and was only open
to his better qualities and accomplishments. He himself, affected with
the near prospect of death, thought, with sorrow, of the injuries he had
committed against her. The news of his repentance was sent to her. She
recollected the ardour of that affection he had lighted up in her bosom,
and the happiness with which she had surrendered herself to him in the
bloom and ripeness of her beauty. Her infant son, the pledge of their
love, being continually in her sight, inspirited her sensibilities. The
plan of lenity which she had previously adopted with regard to him; her
design to excite even the approbation of her enemies by the propriety of
her conduct; the advices of Elizabeth by the Earl of Bedford to entertain
him with respect; the apprehension lest the royal dignity might suffer any
diminution by the universal distaste with which he was beheld by her
subjects, and her certainty and knowledge of the angry passions which her
chief counsellors had fostered against him--all concurred to divest her
heart of every sentiment of bitterness, and to melt it down in sympathy
and sorrow. Yielding to tender and anxious emotions, she left her capital
and her palace, in the severest season of the year, to wait upon him. Her
assiduities and kindnesses communicated to him the most flattering
solacement; and while she lingered about his person with a fond
solicitude, and a delicate attention, he felt that the sickness of his
mind and the virulence of his disease were diminished."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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