AFTER THE DUKE'S DEATH. The Earl of Shrewsbury, on the part of the Queen of England, informed the Queen of Scotland that his mistress had been put to some trouble on her account by reason of many addresses and remonstrances which had been sent to her, he said, by various princes from several quarters of Christendom, especially from France, urging the queen to put the Queen of Scotland to death, mainly upon the ground that she was the pillar and chief hope for the re-establishment of the Papistical religion in this island. Consequently, the queen was greatly indebted to the Queen of England for the act of grace which she had thus done her. Her Majesty asked to see this address, which was refused. Hereupon she declared that, so far from wishing to reject this title which had been given to her of being the hope and defender of the Catholic religion, on the contrary, she accepted it most joyfully and willingly. As to the remainder, she, Mary, was a sovereign queen, and as such could neither receive nor acknowledge any act of grace from any living person whomsoever. She therefore begged the Earl not to use any such terms, for what she had done she could do lawfully. As for the Duke, since the treatment which he had received had been on her account, she was bound to do what she had done for his deliverance, and could she have done more, she would have done it to deliver him, for she had always continued to regard him as betrothed to her, and, as it were, her assured husband. The journey of M. de Burghley to Chatsworth. APPENDIX I. REPORT upon the State of Scotland during the reign of Queen Mary, written in A.D. 1594, and sent to Pope Clement the Eighth by the Jesuit Priests in Scotland.1 In the year 1560 heresy for the first time took public possession of the realm of Scotland, in which, however, it had been making secret progress for some years previously. It was introduced by the Scottish merchants, who traded with the Germans, among whom the Lutheran heresy was rife. It was greatly forwarded in its progress at the beginning by the help of George Wichard, a Scotchman, who for long had been trained in Luther's school. He was a man of considerable intelligence and of good family, who, by the pretence of a holy life, contrived in a very short time to poison the minds not only of many of the common people, but even of the nobles also. When this was discovered (although it was then too late), he was apprehended; and as he clung obstinately to his heresy, he was condemned to be burnt. From this time his followers began to be punished; for so zealous was James the Fifth, at that time King of Scotland, in the cause of religion, that he would not permit heretics to remain anywhere within his realm. As long as he lived it was impossible, therefore, for heresy to strike its roots deep into the soil of Scotland; and for this reason these heretics used every effort to 1 Translated from the early Latin copy in the Barberini MS., xxxii. 210 (1197). |