Probably no character in history has been the theme of more controversy; and while the English speaking world for the most part glories in the triumph of the Reformation, under the bold leadership of John Knox, in Scotland, and the resolute founders of the Established Church in England, it still turns with sympathy and compassion to the fate of the unfortunate queen, made interesting alike by her wit, her beauty and the mystery which always overhung her history. As Scott says: “Her face, her form, have been so deeply impressed upon the imagination, that, even at the distance of nearly three centuries, it is unnecessary to remind the most ignorant and uninformed reader of the striking traits which characterize that remarkable countenance, which seems at once to combine our ideas of the majestic, the pleasing, and the brilliant, leaving us to doubt whether they express most happily the queen, the beauty, or the accomplished woman. Even those who feel themselves compelled to believe all, or much, of what her enemies laid to her charge, can not think without a sigh, upon a countenance expressive of anything rather than the foul crimes with which she was charged when living, and which still continue to shade, if not to blacken her memory. That brow, so truly open and regal—those eyebrows, so regularly graceful, which yet were saved from the charge of regular insipidity by the beautiful effect of the hazel eyes which they overarched, and which seem to utter a thousand histories—the nose, with all its Grecian precision of outline—the mouth, so well proportioned, so sweetly formed, as if designed to speak nothing but what was delightful to hear—the dimpled chin, the stately swan-like neck form a countenance, the like of which we know not to have existed in any other character moving in that class of life where the actresses as well as the actors command general and undivided attention; and no small instance it is of the power of beauty, that her charms should have remained the subject not merely of admiration, but of warm and chivalrous interest, after the lapse of such a length of time.”