Foreword

The clear, the manifest, is self-explanatory; but mystery is a spur to creative imagination. Always, therefore, figures and events that are shrouded in mystery demand elucidation and stimulate the ingenuity of the artistic mind. Among historical problems that call unceasingly for solution, the tragedy of Mary Stuart ranks as a crucial instance. Surely of all the women who have made their mark in the world, no other has been the theme of so many dramas, novels, biographies, and discussions. Throughout four centuries she has allured poets and tormented the fancy of men of learning. Still, today, her story has again and again to be retold. Because that which is confused craves for clarity, that which is in darkness strains towards the light.

The answers to the riddle of Mary's life and character are almost as contradictory as they are manifold. Some regard her as a murderess, others as a martyr; some as an intriguer, others as a saint. The diversity of opinions about this woman is due, not to a shortage of material, but to the perplexing superabundance of contemporary records. In the thousands upon thousands of documents, reports, records of trials, letters, etc., relating to her, the question of her guilt or innocence is continually being re-examined, and the re-trial has continued for three centuries. The more meticulously we scrutinize the documents, the more painfully do we become aware how dubious is the authenticity of historical evidence, and how untrustworthy therefore the conclusions of historians. For no matter how incontestably genuine an ancient document may be, this genuineness does not provide any guarantee as to the human validity of its contents. In the case of Mary Queen of Scots more plainly perhaps than in any other do we become aware how diversely two or more observers may describe an incident which they have witnessed simultaneously. Every well-attested

"Yes" is countered by an equally well-attested "No"; every charge by a rebuttal. Falsehood and truth, fact and fiction, are so confusingly mingled, that every possible viev\^ as to her guilt or innocence where this or that matter is concerned (and especially as to her complicity in Darnley's murder), seems equally supported by reliable testimony. When, over and above this conflict of evidence, we have to allow for the partisanship of politicians and patriots, our dubiety as to the value of the picture that emerges is yet further increased.

In any case it is but natural for people to take sides where characters, ideas, and outlooks are contrasted one with another; so that few, if any, can avoid the temptation of calling one right and the other wrong, one guilty and the other innocent. If, as in the present instance, the witnesses belong to one or other of the contending parties, religions, or philosophies, we may take bias to be a matter of course. Speaking generally, we find that Protestant writers ascribe the blame to Mary, and Catholic ones the blame to Elizabeth; that English historians tend to describe the former unhesitatingly as a murderess, whilst Scottish authorities incline to exonerate her and to speak of her as a victim of calumny. The members of one faction describe the Casket Letters (the thorniest problem of the period) as genuine; the members of the other faction are no less firmly convinced that these epistles must have been forgeries. The rivalry of interpretation extends into the most trivial details of the Scottish Queen's life. It is perhaps easier for one who is neither an Englishman nor a Scot to form an unbiased judgment upon these issues than for one whose national blood begins to course more swiftly when they come up for consideration—easier for him to contemplate them with that artistic interest which is at one and the same time passionate and dispassionate.

True, it would be over-bold even for a foreigner to presume that he was capable of learning the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about Mary Stuart's life. He can hope to achieve no more than an approximation to the truth, to arrive at "extremely probable" conclusions; and however objectively he may strive to consider the facts, he will still be bound by the limitations of his own subjectivity. When the sources do not run clear, he will endeavour to clarify; when contemporary reports give one another the lie, he will, despite himself, assume the attitude of counsel for the defence or counsel for the prosecution.

He will choose between accusations and exonerations. However carefully he may choose, he will often find his canons of personal honesty best satisfied by leaving questions open instead of deciding them one way or the other, and by frankly admitting that, with regard to one or another of Mary's actions or alleged actions, he cannot ascertain the truth, which is likely to remain for ever undiscoverable.

In the present study the author has scrupulously abstained from relying upon evidence obtained by torture, force, or fear. He has also been extremely cautious in the use of the reports of spies or ambassadors (the terms in those days were almost synonymous). Where there is a conflict of testimony, the possible poHtical motives that might lead to distortion have been carefully weighed. In embracing the view that the sonnets and, for the most part, the Casket Letters, are genuine, the author has only done so after the most exhaustive study and in the light of internal evidence which seems to him to warrant his conviction. When a decision between two divergent accounts has been requisite in the absence of corroborative evidence on one side or the other, judgment has been guided by the reflection which of the two versions is more conformable, psychologically, with the general picture of Mary's character. That character, that personality, was by no means abstruse; on the contrary, it was lucid. Mary Stuart was one of those rare and interesting women whose period of supreme activity is comparatively restricted in duration; one of those who have a brief though vigorous blossoming; one of those whose life is mainly lived during the short and glowing phase of a great passion, instead of being spread equably throughout the normal span of existence. Until her twenty-third year, her affective life was almost quiescent; so was it again after her twenty-fifth. During the two years that intervened, passion flamed up in her with elemental force, and what might have seemed an average destiny assumed the lineaments of a Greek tragedy as formidable as that of Orestes. It was only during these two years that Mary underwent the supreme experiences which led in the end to her destruction, and thanks to which, likewise, her memory has become so noteworthy—for what destroyed her made her immortal in song and story.

This peculiar compression of the main happenings of her career into, as it were, one explosive surge of feeling, dictates the form and rhythm of her biography. The reader, therefore, must not feel a sense of dispro-

portion because, in the chronological assignment of space in this book, the twenty-three opening years of Mary's life and the nineteen years of her imprisonment occupy fewer pages than do the two years of her tragical passions. Only in semblance are the outward and inward seasons of a life identical; in verity, wealth of experience is the sole measure of living, and the spirit is timed by another clock than that of the calendar. Under the intoxication of destiny, the mind may traverse lengthy periods in a few days; whereas long years may count for nothing when life is void of momentous spiritual happenings. Just as the historian pays little heed to slow and stagnant epochs, and his interest is focused upon a few and scattered but dramatic and decisive moments—so, for the biographer, who is concerned with the inmost story of a life, only the pulses of passion count. A human being is not fully alive except when his best energies are at work; and when feeling is active, time moves swiftly though the clock-hands circle at their customary pace. Then, as in dreams, one under stress of powerful afFects lives through measureless epochs between two ticks of the pendulum; and with each of us it is as with the enchanted man in the folk-tale who fancied that he had spent a thousand years in the interval between two heart-beats.