MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS 161 bulence. Contrasted, too, with her former situation, that which she was now about to fill appeared particularly formidable. By whatever counsel she acted, the blame cf all unpopular measures would be sure to rest with her. If she fa- vored the Protestants, the Catholics were sure to renounce her, and if she assisted the Catholics, the Protestants would be again found assembling at Perth, listen- ing, with arms in their hands, to the sermons of John Knox, pulling down the remaining monasteries, and subscribing additional covenants. Is it surprising, then, that she found it difficult to steer her course between the rocks of Scylla and the whirlpools of Charybdis ? If misfortunes ultimately overtook her, the wonder unquestionably ought to be, not that they ever arrived, but that they should have been guarded against so long. To further their political views, Mary's hand was sought for by princes of the several European courts. The princes of the house of Austria, apprehensive of the ambition of France, wished a union between the Scottish queen and the Archduke Charles. Philip II., envying the Austrians so important a prize, used all his influence to procure her hand for his son Don Carlos, heir to the extensive domains of the Spanish monarchy. Catharine de Medicis, jealous of them both, offered the hand of the Duke of Anjou, brother to her former husband, and Elizabeth, the artful queen of England, recommended Lord Robert Dudley, afterward Earl of Leicester. Mary shunned all their intrigues, and followed the bent of her own inclina- tion in marrying Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, eldest son of the Earl of Lennox. Darnley, at this time in the bloom of youth, was distinguished for the beauty and grace of his person, and accomplished in every elegant art ; and he also professed the Catholic religion. Darnley's qualifications, however, were super- ficial, and abandoning himself to pleasure and the vices of youth, he became gradually careless and indifferent toward the queen, whose disappointments and mortifications were in proportion to the fervor of her former sentiments. Her French secretary was one David Rizzio, who was possessed of musical talents. and to whom she became much attached. Darnley became jealous of Rizzio, and he, with a number of conspirators, took possession of the palace on March 9, 1 566, while the queen was at supper with the Countess cf Argyle and Rizzio, The latter clung to the queen for protection, but he was torn from her and dragged to the next apartment, where the fury of his enemies put an end to his existence, by piercing his body with fifty-six wounds. The conspirators put Mary under guard, but she escaped, and by the aid of Bothwell and others, she was soon enabled to put her enemies at defiance. This event served to alienate Mary's affections from Darnky. On June 19, 1566, the queen gave birth to a son; an event more fortunate to the nation than to his unhappy mother, whose evil destiny received aggrava- tion from a circumstance which appeared so flattering to her hopes. Darnley, neglected by the queen, and despised by the people, remained in solitude at Stirling, but alarmed by the rumor of a design to seize his person, he thought fit to retire to his father at Glasgow. On his way thither he was seized 11
