Stuart dynasty

114 The Stuart Dynasty.
count of which he upbraided her) began at Craigmillar, when
he himself Lad conferred with her how best to rid the Court
of Darnley by such means as should not sully the family
honour. Thus closed, in personal durance, and exposed to
shameful suspicion, the reign of the most unfortunate occu-
pant of the throne of the Stuarts. Although Eobert II., the
first monarch of that race, is the only one of Mary's predeces-
sors who can be said to have ended his career in perfect peace
— for Eobert III. sank to the grave bitterly grieving over the
captivity of his son and heir — yet Mary's enforced resigna-
tion is sadder than any death-scene. Better, indeed, the last
struggle of James I. with Eobert Graham, in 1437, under
the Black Friars Abbey, the mortal wound and untimely
death of James II. at Eoxburgh in 1460, or the weird assas-
sination of James III. after Sauchieburn, twenty-eight years
later ; aye ! even the self-obliteration of James IV. when
courting national disaster at Flodden in 1513, or the despair-
ing sickness which laid James V. low after Solway Moss in
1542, — all seem less pitiable than the case of the last-named
King's beautiful daughter, deprived of her crown and
immured at Lochleven.