d influence of Catharine de Medici, the worst woman in
Europe,--and her two uncles of the House of Guise, who were little
better. Political intrigues, plottings and crimes were in the very air
she breathed from infancy. But she was an ardent and devout Catholic,
and as such became the centre and the hope of what still remained of
Catholic England.

Elizabeth would have bartered half her possessions for the one
possession of beauty. That she was jealous of her fascinating rival
there is little doubt, but that she was exasperated at her pretensions
and at the audacious plottings against her life and throne is not
strange. In fact we wonder that, with her imperious temper, she so
long hesitated to strike the fatal blow.

Whether Mary committed the dark crimes {93} attributed to her or not,
we do not know. But we do know, that after the murder of her wretched
husband, Lord Darnley, (her cousin, Henry Stuart), she quickly married
the man to whom the deed was directly traced. Her marriage with
Bothwell was her undoing. Scotland was so indignant at the act, that
she took refuge in England, only to fall into Elizabeth's hands.

Mary Stuart had once audaciously said, "the reason her cousin did not
marry was because she would not lose the power of compelling men to
make love to her." Perhaps the memory of this jest made it easier to
sign the fatal paper in 1587.

When we read of Mary's irresistible charm, of her audacity, her
cunning, her genius for diplomacy and statecraft, far exceeding
Elizabeth's--when we read of all this and think of the blood of the
Guises in her veins, and the precepts of Catharine de Medici in her
heart, we realize what her usurpation would have meant for England, and
feel that she was a menace to the State, and justly incurred her fate.
Then again, when we hear of her gentle patience in her {94} long
captivity, her prayers and piety, and her sublime courage when she
walked through the Hall at Fotheringay Castle, and laid her beautiful
head on the block as on a pillow, we are melted to pity, and almost
revolted at the act. It is difficult to be just, with such a lovely
criminal, unless one is made of such stern stuff as was John Knox. The
son of Mary by Henry Stuart (Lord Darnley) was James VI. of Scotland.
His pretensions to the English throne were now seemingly forever at
rest. But Philip of Spain thought the time propitious for his own
ambitious purposes, and sent an Armada (fleet) which