Bellows Falls times. [volume] (Bellows Falls, Vt.) 1856-1965, 1873-05-30
Hiscellamg.

LINEAGE AND EDUCATION OF MAR
QUEEN OF ScoTs.- French Mary W
have called her for French she reall
was, though Scotch in birth. Frencl
she was in heart and sympathy, and b.
her mothers blood, and, with all he
DISCUSSES, never disguised that from her
self or others. If she were, indeed,
sanity queen, she did not come of
family which was prolific in saints. He
paternal grandmother was that Englisi
Margaret whose unwomanly lust was no
even hid beneath a womanly reserve
"an ignorant, deoeitful, low-minded
odious woman" drying her widows
tears in three months to marry the hand
some Earl of Angus divorcing him af
ter two years to marry her paramour
Stewart of Avondale; and in nine oil
ten years later seeking new divorce
that she might return to her first love
as treacherous to her nation as to heI
husbands selling information and her.
self to the English government, and, for
poor wages too; and at the last paying
the penalty all traitors pay in universal
neglect and contempt This Margarets
son, james ", was Mary's father, of
whom We can say nothing worse than
that he was a genuine Stuart, and moth
ing better than that he was perhaps the
best of them. Vigorous in execution,
but vacillating in purpose; brave, but
both false and tickle; condescending to
the people, yet as one who has contempt
for them of good understanding, but OF
degenerate morals; rebelling against the
control of the Scottish nobility, only to
resign himself into the hands of the Ro-
man Catholic churchmen-he died at
the last broken-hearted, because on the
eve of battle deserted by his rebellious
army.
Mary Queen of Scots, his only legiti-
mate child, inherited from him the
throne, and with it a sorry idea Of the
sacredness of the marriage tie. 1t is
significant of the credibility of contem-
poraneous history that this man, who
maintained a Scotch harem with four
noble wives. and left half dozen illegit-
innate children of rank, besides no man
knows how many unknown bastards,
should be written down as the most ex-
emplary and virtuous of monarchs.
By her father Mary was Stuart; on
her mothers side she belonged to the
Lorranes of Franco family as I'M
scrupulous as it was daring, 1t was her
uncle, the chivalrous Duke of Guise,
who, coming one day upon congrega-
ton of Protestants, met for worship, and
opening fire upon them, when the poor,
unarmed martyrs broke through the
roof, ordered his soldiers to bring them
down with their shot, as one brings
down pigeons" his lady looking on and
hugely enjoying the exciting sport. 1t
was her other uncle, the Cardinal of
Lorraine, whom Plus V. nicknamed the
"Ultramontane Pope" and who sigma
liked his devotion to the Church by
holding at one time no less than four
teen sees, bishoprics, and abbeys, and
managing with great economy to live
very comfortably on the paltry income
of 100000 francs which they annually
brought him. "He is not much be-
loved" says contemporary he is far
from truthful, naturally deceitful and
covetous, but full Of religion The sis
ter of these Lorraines, Mary of Guise,
the mother of Mary Queen of Scots, has
been scarcely less bitterly condemned
and no less highly eulogized than her
daughter. On the whole there is
perhaps no better estimate of her
character than that of Robertson !
Mary of Guise possessed the same bold
and aspiring spirit which distinguished
her family but in her it was softened
by the female character, and accompa-
MED with greater temper and address"
This was the " martyred queens line
age. Her education was even less
adapted to develop sanity qualities
Probably about the last person in the
world who would be chosen to educate a
saint would be Catharine de- Medici of
infamous memory. And Catharine de-
Medici was Mary's custodian. This wo-
man, who deliberately debauched her
own sons that she might better manage
them, was not, we may imagine, over
in her counsels to the young
girl who was her most dreaded rival.
Probably the last school where one
would choose tosend susceptible maiden
to learn lessons of purity would be the
court of France in the sixteenth century.
And it was in the court of France Mary
spent the most SUSCEPTIBLE years of her
six to nineteen. Certainly
the last custodian of the conscience
which modern world would choose
would be those Jesuit fathers asquez:
Mendoza, for example-who
did not hesitate to defend by their cauis-
try, and under color of religion, fraud,
forgery, falsehood, murder; and whose
teachings, before they were counteracted |
by the protests of such believers as Pas
cal, and such heritics as Luther, brought
forth their fruit in the assassination of |
William of Orange and Of Coligni, and
IN the wholesale massacre of St. Bar
tholonew. And it was their fathers,
and their apt disciple the Cardinal of
Lorraine, who were the keepers of
Marys conscience Harper's Magazine
for February.
Tommy, my son, what are you going |