Queen Mary

“ O great and glorious queen of heaven, Mary! I beseech thee by that exalted throne upon which God has raised thee above all angels and saints; let me one day appear amongst them to join them in their praise of thee. Obtain for me the grace that I may never cease to honor thee as thou dost deserve to be honored, and thereby to become worthy of thy mighty protection in life and death. ”

“ Oh my beloved mother, if, as I hope, I am saved by thee, I will no longer be ungrateful; I will make amends by perpetual praises and by all the affection of my soul for my past ingratitude, and will make some return for the love thou bearest me. In heaven, where thou reignest and wilt reign forever, I will always joyfully sing thy mercies, and forever I will kiss those loving hands that have freed me from hell as often as I have deserved it for my sins. Oh Mary, my liberator, my hope, my queen, my advocate, my mother, I love thee, I wish thee well, and will always love thee. ”

“ Mary, Mary, as immortal as my soul will be that dream!
Did I wrong her whom I worshiped, was her beauty made profane?
Let my life-blood pay the penance, and remove the blushing stain;
Still the daring sin committed which the queen can not forgive,
In thy woman's soul repenting, finds a generous relenting,
Which while it would slay the subject, would still bid the lover live.
God protect thee, beauteous princess, when the faithful are no more,
God's guiding angels pilot thee to Time's eternal shore ”

“ In spite of the Queen’s resolve to treat the peace disturbers with greater severity than heretofore, her former leniency having been so much abused, it does not appear from the above that Mary had any desire for their death, but it would seem rather, as if she snatched at every pretext for sparing their lives, providing them with every possible pretext for escape. In her desolation and perplexities, she turned more than ever to the consolations of religion, and to the relief of the poor and afflicted. ”

“ Queen shall she be in my bosom for ever.
Mary, I'm thine wi' a passion sincerest,
And thou hast plighted me love o' the dearest!
And thou art the angel that never can alter;
Sooner the sun in his motion shall falter. ”

“ It is not without pain, that the reader observes a shade encroaching upon the light with which the memory of queen Mary has been hitherto invested—the popular, the beneficent, the pious, the celestial queen Mary, from whose presence none ever withdrew without an addition to his happiness. What can be charged upon this delight of human kind? ”

“ Oh most holy, immaculate Virgin, and my mother Mary, to thee who art the mother of my Lord, the [333] queen of the world, the advocate, the hope, the refuge of sinners, I, the most miserable of all, have recourse to-day. I adore thee, oh great queen, and thank thee for all the favors thou hast hitherto granted me, especially for having delivered me from hell, which I have so often deserved. I love thee, oh most amiable Lady, and through the love I bear thee promise that I will always serve thee, and do all that I can that thou mayest also be loved by others. ”

“ Mary came up before you in moving habit as she lived—the young Mary who caught all hearts, not heartless herself, and laid hold of mere straws to save herself as she drifted desperately with circumstances; not the woman who has been painted as an actor from first to last, as coming forth draped for effect at the very closing scene,—not that woman, but the girlish queen who laughed and called to the echo, and forgot the cares of a kingdom while she could. ”

“ As the Earl gazed upon Mary, love filled his mind with the most glittering illusions, and cast a halo round her that dazzled bun. He almost fancied himself the husband of the beautiful being before him, and the father of the little cherub on her knee; a glow, to which his heart had yet been a stranger, swelled up within it, as the brief hallucination became more complete. His passing flame for Anna and his Countess—his schemes of power and grandeur—were all forgotten and merged in the joy that filled his bosom. ”

“ Oh Queen and Mother of Mercy! who dost dispense graces to all those who have recourse to thee, so liberally because thou art queen, and with so much love because thou art our most loving mother; to thee I [199] commend myself to-day, destitute of merits and virtues as I am, and laden with debts to the divine justice. Oh Mary, thou hast the keys of all the divine mercies, do not forget my miseries, and do not leave me in my great poverty. Thou who art so liberal with all, and who givest more than is asked of thee, do so with me. ”

“ There is heaven! and Mary looks down from it, into her church, where she sees us on our knees, and knows each one of us by name. There she actually is—not in symbol or in fancy, but in person, descending on her errands of mercy and listening to each one of us, as her miracles prove, or satisfying our prayers merely by her presence which calms our excitement as that of a mother calms her child. She is there as Queen, not merely as intercessor, and her power is such that to her the difference between us earthly beings is nothing. Her quiet, masculine strength enchants us most. ”

“ In reply to this document, which, as she observed, read as a command addressed to a subject, Queen Mary replied with dignity. "I am myself a queen," said she, "daughter of a king, a stranger, and the true kinswoman of the Queen of England. I came into England on my cousin's promise of assistance against my enemies and rebel subjects, and was at once imprisoned. I have thus remained for eighteen years, always ill-treated and suffering constant trials at the hands of Queen Elizabeth. ”

“ This little princess was named Mary, a name esteemed then, as now, as the most beautiful of all names. Mary increased in loveliness each day and when she was fifteen the fame of her beauty and amiability was worldwide.
But one day, as the princess sat counting her pearls in her chamber, the old witch Mirza flew in through the window on a broomstick and carried the princess Mary off to her forlorn old castle, a league beyond the city. The queen mother, who had witnessed this violence, fell into a swoon from which she never recovered, and the whole court was thrown into a vast commotion. ”

“ After which she added, thoughtfully, 'I think that Queen Mary is not so bigoted as some people imagine, and she has behaved very leniently in several ways since her elevation to the throne. She forgave my father and set him free, and, although the Emperor Charles, to whom she looks up so much, has advised her to have me executed, she has refused——'
'I should think so!' I interrupted. 'Oh, dear madam, what a wicked wretch that emperor must be!'
'People always look at things from their own point of view, or the point of view of those dearest to them,' said my mistress. ”

“ At the age of nineteen Mary was a widow, about to set sail for her northern kingdom.
She was now the most charming princess of her time, fond of music, dancing, laughter, and gaiety, yet eager for risk and adventure, and always rejoicing in the clash of arms. Often she wished she were a man “to know what life it was to lie all night in the fields, or to walk on the causeway with a jack and knapsack, a Glasgow buckler, and a broadsword.” In statecraft she was the equal of Queen Elizabeth, and in person and charm she far exceeded her royal kinswoman. ”

“ From the first he had augured nothing but evil from the accession of Mary, and it is to his honour that with such misgivings in his heart, he was at this very time in the habit of using in the pulpit a prayer of singular beauty and comprehensiveness, in which we find this petition: "Illuminate the heart of our Sovereign Lady Queen Mary with pregnant gifts of the Holy Ghost, and influence the hearts of her council with Thy true fear and love." ”

“ Yet, during the whole of this long period, amid sufferings which would have broken many a masculine spirit, and which, even in our own times, have been seen to conquer those who had conquered empires, Mary retained the innate grace and dignity of her character, never forgetting that she had been born a queen, or making her calamities an excuse for the commission of any petty meanness, which she would have scorned in the day of her prosperity. ”

“ There are so many reasons why we should love this our loving queen, that if all the earth should praise Mary, and all sermons treat of her alone, and all men should give their lives for Mary, it would yet be little compared to the homage and gratitude we owe her, for the very tender love she bears to all men, even to the most miserable sinners who preserve towards her any feeling of devotion. ”

“ Mary is, then, a queen, but — what a consolation to know it! — a queen always mild and gentle, always willing to confer benefits upon us. Hence the Church teaches us to call her the Mother of mercy. The pious and learned author Gerson says: "God's dominion comprises justice and mercy. He divided it, retaining the administration of justice for Himself, and relinquishing, in a certain sense, the dispensation of mercy to Mary, by conferring through her hands all graces He grants to mankind." How consoling, then, the assurance that our merciful Mother is so mighty and so loving a queen! ”

“ After bestowing much praise on the King and Queen, he continues rather quaintly: “Philip is the spouse of Mary, but treats her so deferentially as to appear her son, thus giving promise of the best result. Mary has spiritually generated England, before giving birth to that heir of whom there is very great hope.” [492] The Pope’s response to this eulogy was the sending to Mary of the golden rose, and to Philip the sword and hat which sometimes accompanied it, when the Pope desired to honour in this manner both a King and a Queen. The Venetian ambassador thus chronicled the event. ”

“ At the end of Mass, the Lady Mary made a low curtsy, and went to her lodging; so did the Lady Anne, then called queen. When she came to her quarter, one of her maids told her that the Lady Mary at parting made reverence to her, she answered that she did not observe it, and said: ‘If we had seen it, we would have done as much to her,’ and presently sent a lady of honour to her to excuse it; adding, that the love of none should be dearer nor more respected than hers, and she would embrace it with the kindness of a true friend. ”

“ The Privy Purse Expenses of the Princess Mary are eloquent of her generosity towards “the Lady Elizabeth’s grace,” and until Elizabeth forfeited her esteem by making common cause with her enemies, there was no diminution of cordiality on the part of the Queen towards her sister. She married Philip of Spain in spite of all opposition, in the first place for the sake of the realm, and in the hope of issue, and gave him a [Pg 479] passionate devotion. In most of these things Mary was a true woman, no heroine, but tender and human to a fault. ”

“ She bore witness, in after years, to the kindness and consideration she had received from Queen Mary, and the precedence accorded to her on all state occasions as a princess of the blood, allowing her to walk before any of the other great ladies of the court, excepting the Princess Elizabeth, the Lady Frances, and Henry VIII’s fourth wife and only surviving widow, Anne of Cleves. Queen Mary, unlike her successor Elizabeth, insisted upon her ladies and maids of honour paying the utmost attention to their religious duties, and was, moreover, very vigilant as to their manners and their morals. ”

“ How could Mary—a professed foe, a claimant of her crown, a woman fairer, and of brighter parts even than her own—a mother, while she was but a barren stake—how could Mary, with so many causes to awaken her deathless hostility, hope for generosity or for mercy from a queen who could even sacrifice without a pang her inclinations to her interest; whose favors but marshalled those on whom they fell to the scaffold and the block; whose dearest favorites, whose most faithful servants had fallen, one by one, beneath the headsman’s axe ”

“ This pale-faced, silent, sombre young man, busy about the realities of government, was far less to her taste than her rubicund, good-natured husband, her lord and servant, over whom she could queen it in Tudor fashion when the occasion served. The maker of the legend knew more of the 238 hearts of princesses than of emperors, and Mary, true to her upbringing, wore, no doubt, the pretty gowns she had had made for the meeting with the French Court, and would have been gratified had she seen the faintest desire in the eyes of her former suitor. ”

“ No monument has ever been raised to the memory of Queen Mary I. Two small black tablets mark the spot where she lies buried, in the north aisle of Henry VIIth’s Chapel in Westminster Abbey, at the foot of the tomb erected by James I. over the remains of Elizabeth. ”

“ But Elizabeth had refused him, and while the subject of her sister’s religion mainly preoccupied Mary during the illness which she felt would end in death, that of his sister-in-law’s marriage concerned Philip still more deeply.
In The Life of Jane Dormer, Duchess of Feria it is recorded, [689] that “Queen Mary in her last sickness sent Commissioners to examine her [Elizabeth] about religion; to whom she answered, ‘Is it not possible that the queen will be persuaded I am a Catholic, having so often protested it?’ and thereupon did swear and vow that she was a Catholic. ”

“ Mary herself, with her beauty and her misfortunes, shining among the rest like the creation of a softer age and clime, fills up the picture, and rivets the interest. She becomes the centre round which the others revolve; and their importance is measured only by the influence they exercised over her fate, and the share they had in that strange concatenation of circumstances, which, as if in mockery of the nobility of her birth, and the splendour of her expectations, rendered her life miserable, and her death ignominious. ”