Stuart dynasty

APPENDIX II. 447
also records the satisfaction which was felt when the faithful
Mar was appointed to the guardianship of this precious child,
and removed hiin to Stirling Castle, of which the said Mar
accepted the governorship.
We are now asked to believe on mere conjectural evidence,
either that Darnley was wrong when he acknowledged James VI.
as his own child, or that the Earl of Mar — famoiis for personal in-
tegrity, whatever his political bias towards the Queen may have
been — stood guilty of a State deceit, the discovery of which
must have covered his name for ever with disgrace. For a
fierce light beat upon the Castle at Edinburgh during the
period when Scotland's heir remained within its portals. Not
only did the city swarm with the secret agents of Queen
Elizabeth, while diplomatists in touch with Catherine de
Medicis and the Guises vied in the collection of information with
the emissaries of the Spanish Court ; but the various factions
interested in anarchy and confusion were likewise fully alive
to the leverage which would be won by any seizure, deportation,
or despatch of the heir. Indeed, it is not too much to say that
had a catastrophe such as the death of James VI. taken place,
not only would Mary Stuart and Elizabeth have proclaimed the
fact from the housetops during some period of the great drama
wherein they were actresses, but Darnley, the Hamiltons (next
heirs to the throne), Murray, and Bothwell, would one and all
at different periods, have found it to their interest to place the
story on record. Nor is it possible to believe that such an
event would have been permanently hidden from the astute
Maitland of Lethington, still less from the all-seeing Cecil.
And yet not a whisper of anything at all analogous to the
nineteenth century sensational rumour to which we allude has
ever before been heard amidst the deluge of Marian writings
which fill our historical shelves. And what are the facts
whereon this tardily awakened tale of mystery depends ?
" Part of the remains of a child and an oak coffin were found
on the 11th of August, 1830, in the front wall of the Royal
Apartments Square, Edinburgh Castle, nearly in a line with
the Crown Room, about five or six feet above the floor.
" A piece of cloth, supposed to be woollen, very thick, wove
like leather, and another piece of cloth said to be silk and
embroidered with two letters upon it, one of them being