QUEEN MARY A PARTY TO THE DEATH OF DARNLEY?

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9154, 8 September 1888, Page 2 (Supplement)

QUEEN MARY A PARTY TO THE DEATH OF DARNLEY?

— Those who agree with mo will hold that Mary was not entirely unaware of the measures which were being taken by the nobility to secure in one way or other the removal of Daruley ; that if she did not expressly sanction the enterprise, she failed, firmly and promptly, to forbid its execution ; that though she hesitated to the last between pity and aversion, yet that what amnunted to, or what may at least bo characterised as, passive acquiescence, was sufficient to compromise her; that the equivocal position in which she found herself placed, either by accident or by design, sufficiently explains whatever in her subsequent conduct is wanting in firmness and dignity ; that as the plot proceeded, Bothwell came to the front, and that to his daring and reckless hand the execution of the informal sentence of the peers was ultimately entrusted; that he induced the nobles who hail been his accomplices to promote his suit to the Qusen, and that for various reasons, good, bad, and indifferent, " the best part of the realm did approve it, either by flattery or by their silence that in accepting Bothwell, Mary could not be accounted a free agent—her health was impaired, her spirit was broken, she had been imprudent, and her indiscretions could be used against her with fatal effect, while (Lethington excepted) she had no friend beside her on whose disinterested counsel she could rely ; that she struggled against the indirect compulsion of circumstances, and the direct pressure that was brought to bear upon her, as best she could, declining to'consent to a ruinous union until actual force had been used ; and that thereafter, there being no other "outgait," she submitted with a heavy heart and grievous misgivings to the inevitable.—From " Mary Stuart in Scotland," by John Skelton, C.8., in Blackwood's Magazine for July, 18SS.