Stuarts

CHAPTER VIII
MARY — CHARACTER — PORTRAITS — RELICS
" Surely she was a high kind of woman, with haughty energies most flashing, fitful discern-
ments ; generosities ; too fitful all, though most gracefully elaborated ; the born daughter of
heroes — but sore involved in papistries, French coquetries, poor woman ; and had the dash
of Gypsy tragic in her I doubt not ; and was seductive enough to several, instead of being
divinely beautiful to all. Considering her grand rude task in this world, and her beautiful,
totally inadequate faculty for doing it, and stern destiny for not doing it, even Dryasdust has
felt that there was seldom anything more tragical." — Carlvle.
HE career of Mary has now been traced from the grim walls of
Linlithgow to her last resting-place in Westminster Abbey. We
have seen the diadem fall from her head only to be replaced by
" a crown of adoration." Such a heated atmosphere of partisan-
ship seems destined for ever to envelop this Queen, as a French writer has
said, that it is hopeless to attempt a summary of her character likely to meet
with general acceptance. The story of her life, as told in the preceding pages,
should speak for itself. Complex and subtle all must allow her nature to have
been ; beyond this, but little common ground in estimating her real character
seems to be found. Some of us will continue to regard her with Hume, as
" this most amiable woman " ; others will share the sentiment of Mr. Froude,
who (says Mr. Hosack) "denounced her as the worst and most abandoned
of her sex, and in language unprecedented among historians of any age calls
her a brute." Yet elsewhere Froude informs his readers that she was "warm
and true in her friendships," that she had " a noble nature," and that she was
"generous " in the extreme.
On the evidence before him, Sir John Skelton cannot believe that " her
hundred gallant and inspiring qualities" were "either feigned or borrowed."
He asserts that "as a girl at least, she was absolutely veracious ; and if before
the end came some of the finer and more magnanimous traits of her character
had suffered eclipse, one must remember that hardly any other woman had
M