[*] What a picture have we here, of the heroine of England! Wooing a faithful servant to commit a clandestine murder, which she herself durst not avow! The portrait of King John, in the same predicament, practising with Hubert to murder his nephew, then under his charge, shows how intimately the great Poet was acquainted with nature. O my gentle Hubert, We owe thee much! Within this wall of flesh, There is a soul, counts thee her creditor, And with advantage means to pay thy love, And, my good friend, thy voluntary oath Lives in this bosom dearly cherished. [199] Mackenzie's Lives of the Scottish Writers, vol. iii. p. 336.--Robertson, vol. ii. p. 194.--Chalmers, vol. i. p. 449. [200] La Mort de la Royne d'Ecosse in Jebb, vol. ii. p. 611. [201] Jebb, vol. ii. p. 622. et seq. [202] "Mary's testament and letters," says Ritson the antiquarian, "which I have seen, blotted with her tears in the Scotch College, Paris, will remain perpetual monuments of singular abilities, tenderness, and affection,--of a head and heart of which no other Queen in the world was probably ever possessed." [203] Jebb, vol. ii. p. 628, et seq. [204] History of Fotheringay, p. 79. [205] Among these attendants were her physician Bourgoine, who afterwards wrote a long and circumstantial narrative of her death, and Jane Kennedy, formerly mentioned on the occasion of Mary's escape from Loch-Leven. [206] Narratio Supplicii Mortis Mariae Stuart in Jebb, vol. ii. p. 163.--La Mort de la Royne d'Ecosse in Jebb, vol. ii. p. 636 and 639.--Camden, p. 535. [207] Jebb, vol. ii. p. 640, et seq. [208] See Mezeray, Histoire de France, tome iii. [209] "We may say of Mary, I believe, with strict propriety," observes Whittaker, "what has been said of one of her Royal predecessors,--'the gracious Duncan,' that she "Had borne her faculties so meek, had been So clear in her great office, that her virtues, Will plead, like angels, trumpet-tongued, against _The deep damnation of her taking off_." [210] "Oraison Funebre" in Jebb, vol. ii. p. 671. [211] Anderson, vol. ii. p. 92. [212] Keith, p. 79. [213] Anderson, vol. i. p. 117.--Keith, p. 379. [214] Melville, p. 175. et seq. [215] Goodall, vol. ii. p. 90. [216] Keith, p. 406. [217] Anderson, vol. i. p. 139. [218] Keith, p. 417. [219] Haynes, p. 454.--Stuart, vol. i. p. 361. [220] Goodall, vol. ii. p. 66. [221] Keith, p. 467.--Anderson, vol. ii. p. 173. [222] Goodall, vol. ii. p. 140. [223] Goodall, vol. ii. p. 235. [224] Ibid. 256. [225] Tytler, vol. i. p. 144.