could eclipse her in a galliarde. Her beauty and the
charming expression of her countenance were such, that, as a
contemporary asserts, "no one could look upon her without loving her."
When her mother came over to visit her in 1550, she burst into tears
of joy, and congratulated herself on her daughter's capacity and
loveliness. Soon after Mary's marriage to Francis, in 1558, Elizabeth
ascended the English throne; the pope, and the French and Spanish
courts, refused to acknowledge her; and Mary, undisputably the next
heir, was compelled by the commands of her father-in-law to assume the
title and arms of queen of England--a measure of unforeseen but fatal
consequences to her, as it added fresh fuel to the fires of envy,
jealousy, and hatred, which the personal advantages of Mary had
already excited in the bosom of her vain and vindictive rival.

[Illustration: MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS, AT WINFIELD CASTLE.]

In 1558, Francis and Mary were crowned king and queen of France.
Francis survived this event but a few months. He was far inferior to
his wife, both in personal and mental accomplishments; he was of
sickly constitution, and very reserved; but he had an affectionate and
kind disposition. He was not a man to call forth the deepest and most
passionate feelings of such a heart as Mary's; but she ever treated
him with tenderness and most respectful attention. She is described by
an eye-witness as a "sorrowful widow," and lamented her husband
sincerely.

The happiness of Mary's life was now at an end. She was a stranger in
the land of which she had so recently been crowned queen. In the queen
mother, the ambitious Catherine de Medicis, who now ruled France in
the name of her son Charles IX., Mary had an inveterate foe. In the
reign of Francis they had been rivals for power, when the charms of
the wife had triumphed over the authority of the mother. There was
another wound which had long rankled in the vindictive bosom of
Catherine. In the artlessness of youth, Mary had once boasted of her
own descent from a "hundred kings," which was supposed to reflect on
the mercantile lineage of the daughter of the Medicis. She now took
her revenge. By the most studied slights she sought to mortify Mary,
who first retired to Rheims. Here she was waited on by a deputation
from her own nobles, who invited her, in terms which amounted to a
command, to return to her native country.

A new cause of difficulty now occurred between Mary and E