Mary of Lorraine

“ Scoticas pati pruinas."
And so the Highland winter came on with all its dreariness; and amid the cloistral seclusion of the Isle of Rest, and of Mary of Lorraine's little court, Florence thought ever of Madeline Home, and longed again to hear her voice—to see her smile—to touch her pretty hand. ”

“ On this, Mary of Lorraine, who had come to the council, gave him a glance of sorrowful reproach.
"My lords," said she, with a flush on her usually pale cheek, "when my dear husband was dying in Falkland Palace, as Monseigneur le Cardinal Beaton (who is now in heaven) told me, the setting sun shed a stream of light into the room where he lay, and with brilliance lit up the royal arms above the mantelpiece, the arms of Scotland, or, the lion gules within a double tressure, all were brightened as with a transient glory ”

“ But the slaughter of to day, the treason of our peers, and dispersion of the army, have plunged the land in danger and dishonour, the end of which I cannot foresee! A thousand times to-night I have said—would that I were dead!"
"Florence," said the countess softly, taking his hand in hers, "at this miserable time, do not let us exaggerate our sorrows. Let us rather bear up together against our misfortunes. All hope is not dead for us. Something yet remains, for Mary of Lorraine is my friend, and hope whispers to me that we shall both be happy yet." ”

“ The young man felt his eyes and heart fill at these words, for the loyalty of the olden time was a passion, strong and enthusiastic as that of a lover for his love.
Mary of Lorraine, with her white hand, drew back the tapestry, and revealed the inner apartment, the walls of which were hung with yellow Spanish leather stamped with crowns and thistles, and the oak floor of which was covered by what was then a very unusual luxury—a Persian carpet. Passing in, Florence found himself in the royal nursery. ”

“ I have gien mony an uncanny cloure in my time."
"Enough of this!" exclaimed Champfleurie, drawing his sword and dagger.
"Yea, enough and to spare," added Florence, unsheathing his rapier and the exquisite little poniard given to him by Mary of Lorraine, and closing in close and mortal combat. They fought with such impetuosity that at the third pass he ran Champfleurie through the left forearm, piercing his plate sleeve like a gossamer web, and inflicting a wound so severe that the blood dripped over his fingers. ”

“ On a bright July morning, when the wooded hills that rise around the blue lake, the ancient priory, and the green Isle of Rest were clothed in their heaviest summer foliage, Florence was seated in the boxwood bower beside the old hawthorn-tree, reading to the little queen. With her dove-like eyes turned up to his face in wonder, she heard how the valiant paladin, Sir Palomides, sorrowed for la Belle Isonde—of the siege perilous, and the marvellous adventure of the sword in a stone; but now Mary of Lorraine approached them with a grave and mournful expression in her face ”

“ Champfleurie——"
"Like each one of you, is a villain, whom, will God, I shall yet unmask and slay!" exclaimed their victim.
"By St. Bride! poor devil, I almost pity thee!" said Bothwell. "Thou'lt fare hardly enough at the hands of Millheugh and his ragged Robins."
"Florence Fawside," said Kilmaurs, "we know thee to be a spy of the Guises and bearer of their letters to Mary of Lorraine and the Regent Arran. We can easily slay thee, and obtain such papers as may be concealed in secret pockets; but we care not, by cracking the nut, to gain the kernel so hastily. ”

“ The queen dowager and her daughter were carefully watched at Linlithgow, but on the 23rd of July 1543 they escaped, with the help of Cardinal Beton, to the safer walls of Stirling castle. After the queen’s coronation in September Mary of Lorraine was made principal member of the council appointed to direct the affairs of the kingdom. She was constantly in communication with her kinsmen in France, and was already planning to secure for her daughter a French alliance, which was opposed on different grounds by all her advisers. ”

“ He had seen Madeline Home in her place at court as Countess of Yarrow, as maid of honour to Mary of Lorraine and as daughter of that brave Quentin Home, sixth Earl of Yarrow, who bore the king's standard at Flodden, and was warden of the middle marches—who was cupbearer to James V., and his ambassador to John III. of Portugal. Florence had seen the eyes of a hundred men surveying with admiration her beauty, which rivalled and at times outshone that of the queen she attended. ”

“ A queen, a mother—I shall triumph! I will teach those rebel peers that Mary of Lorraine will struggle rather than stoop, and perish rather than yield! Champfleurie!—where is M. Champfleurie?"
"He is with the guard, madam," said the countess. "Shall I send for him?"
Now Livingstone of Champfleurie was a West-Lothian laird, who enjoyed the reputation of being one of the handsomest, but at the same time most dissipated men in Scotland; and on hearing him spoken of by the beautiful young countess, Florence experienced an unaccountable uneasiness ”

“ To keep Florence near her own person, as she found him useful, faithful, and liked his society, she made him captain of her guard, in place of Livingstone of Champfleurie; but the Countess of Yarrow was no longer at court, as Claude Hamilton, in his capacity of tutor or guardian, appointed by the will of her father the earl, had removed her to Edinburgh. Thus Florence felt an irrepressible gloom over him, a moodiness of spirit, which not even the dazzling favour, or seductive society of Mary of Lorraine could relieve. ”

“ And yet, 'tis strange—this witchcraft, like the spirit of Lollardy, seems to grow apace in the land."
"They have been caught, and are to thole an assize. One is accused of giving devilish drugs and philtres to the Earl of Bothwell, wherewith to win the love of the queen mother"——
"Mary of Lorraine?"
"Another, of cutting off a dead man's thumbs to make hell-broth, wherein she dipped nine elf-arrows, and shot nine o' auld Preston's kye."
"A murrain on him! Would to Heaven the hag had shot himself! But he is reserved for a better end." ”

“ Now and then Mary’s maternal uncles, the princes of Lorraine, Francis, the great Duc de Guise (the same who took Calais and broke the English Queen’s heart) , and the Cardinal de Lorraine, the proudest and falsest prelate in the sacred college, [9] endeavour to traverse the designs of Catherine, and to inspire their beautiful niece with a taste for intrigue—under their guidance, be it well understood. But all such attempts are useless. Mary loves poetry and music, revels in banquets and masques, hunts and games, and toys with her boy-husband, of whose society she never wearies. ”

“ By my soul, young sir, you have picked up some wit in your travels; but it may provoke the exercise of a sharper weapon in Scotland. 'Tis dangerous here especially. The town is full of our malcontent lords and the gentlemen of their trains. They swagger in the streets, and jostle the queen's guards, impeding even the horse-litter of Mary of Lorraine. They say and practise a thousand insolences in public; their swords flash under the nose of any poor burgess body who dares but look at them; they are fine fellows—yea, brave fellows ”

“ God rest him in his grave at Holyrood!" muttered the loyal old Earl of Mar, raising his bonnet; "he was the father of the poor."
"Lord earl, I thank you," said Mary, whose eyes filled with tears, and whose daughter, on perceiving this emotion, gently stole her little hand within hers; "after his death, I might have urged the parliament to remember that Mary of Gueldres, the widow of James II., and Margaret Tudor, the widow of James IV., were both regents of Scotland; then why not I, Mary of Guise and Lorraine, widow of their descendant, James V.? ”

“ But among her nobles are men ever ready to bend their necks to any chain of gold, or sell their faith and honour to the highest bidder!"
Perceiving that their design of having the English marriage accomplished was on the eve of being hopelessly frustrated,—that the proposals of the Valois were all but formally accepted by the regent and Mary of Lorraine, those who were in secret league with England became desperate, and Kilmaurs at last conceived the artful idea of embroiling Arran with the Queen-mother on a point concerning which he knew them to be remarkably sensitive. ”

“ As a Catholic and as a Queen, her natural desire must be to undo the work of the late revolution, which she could only regard as the work of rebels and heretics. "Whenever she comes," wrote Randolph, the English resident, "I believe there will be a mad world." Mary might prove to be as able as her mother, and she would possess many advantages over Mary of Lorraine in any contest with her subjects. ”

“ Mary stated to him distinctly her views upon this important matter, and there was a consistency and moderation in them hardly to have been expected from the niece of the Cardinal of Lorraine, had we not been previously aware of the strength of her superior mind. “I will be plain with you,” said she to the ambassador. “The religion which I profess I take to be most acceptable to God; and indeed, I neither know, nor desire to know, any other. Constancy becometh all people well, but none better than princes, and such as have rule over realms, and especially in matters of religion. ”

“ All these things being so, no one will believe them. And to-night, when you are safely tucked into your little bed, if you hear the tramping of many feet on the asphalt walks you may know what it will mean. It will mean that your mother and father, and Elizabeth, and Grandma Evarts and Maria and Peggy will be dropping in on Lorraine, each alone and quite casually, of course, to find out what there really is in this terrible rumor. And some of them will believe to their dying day that there was something in it. ”

“ Poor Father indeed, if a real remorseless sociologist were once to get well hold of him! Lorraine freely maintains that there's more in the Temples than meets the eye; that they're up to something, at least that HE is, that he kind of feels us in the air, just as we feel him, and that he would sort of reach out to us, by the same token, if we would in any way give the first sign. This, however, Lorraine contends, his wife won't let him do ”

“ I laughed. “Lorraine has the sharpest ears,” I said. “Ears!” said Lorraine. “It isn't ears. I smell orris. She's coming. Mr. Dane, will you take Peggy out of that window into the garden? Don't yip, either of you, while you're within gunshot, and don't appear till I tell you.”
“Lorraine!” came a voice, softly, from the front walk. It was Aunt Elizabeth. She has a way of calling to announce herself in a sweet, cooing tone. I said to Charles Edward once it was like a dove, and he said: “No, my child, not doves, but woodcock.” ”

“ Upon my word I believe I'd go on lying low to this positive pitch of grovelling—and Lorraine, charming, absurd creature, would back me up in it too—in order precisely to save Mother such a revulsion. It will be really more trouble than it will be worth to her ”

“ So long as she had hopes of the Spanish prince she gave but evasive answers; but late in 1564 the cunning diplomacy of Catharine and the falseness of Cardinal Lorraine had diverted that danger; and Philip gave Mary to understand that the match with his son was impossible, Mary's great hope had been founded upon this marriage. Unless she could have a foreign Catholic husband strong enough to defy Elizabeth she knew that she must make terms with Elizabeth's enemies, the English Catholics, and thus bring pressure to bear upon her by internal dissensions. ”

“ Mary at Skoek, and the harmony of their sweet voices came delightfully on the soft wind that swayed the masses of wavy grain, and rustled the foliage of the Torwood at Bannockburn, one of those crosses which piety of old had placed in almost every Scottish village, had been overthrown in the night; the arms of this symbol of redemption had been shattered, and the effigy of the Great Martyr was dashed to fragments, which were strewed over the roadway. ”

“ He was a leal brave man, our laird!"
"True, Westmains," replied the lady, while her large black eyes kindled. "But none of his race have died a natural death—it would seem to be their doom. All, all have perished in feud or in the cause of Scotland; and though my heart would break were a hair of my Florence's head to be touched, never shall son of this house die in his bed like a fat monk of St. Mary or a lurdane burgess of Haddington."
"Thou art true to thy race, Lady Alison." ”

“ It was the autumn of the year, and in his heart the ripe autumn of a love, that might have no spring or summer.
On this night the grim and indignant Lady Alison did not appear; and Florence, who, by his recent unexpected interview, and the hope of another with Madeline Home, felt as if he was in the midst of some tremendous treason against the peace and honour of his own family, experienced some relief in the absence of his mother; for such is the power that may be attained by a strong temper and resolute will over a gentle and affectionate, but better nature. ”

“ With the same hand on the corpse of my Willie—that comely corpse,—sore gashed by Preston's curtal axe, I swore again that deadly vow; by the tombs in which they moulder side by side—that brave old father and most faithful son,—and on bended knees, by God's holy altar, a thousand times have I registered the same terrible vow,—registered it in thy name, Florence! I am a weak, very weak, and sorrow-stricken old woman; my trust is in thee, Florence; and woe to thee, woe, if that trust be unworthily placed! ”