THE QUEEN’S MARIES:
A Romance of Holyrood.
BY
G. J. WHYTE MELVILLE,
AUTHOR OF “DIGBY GRAND,” “THE INTERPRETER,” “HOLMBY HOUSE,”“GOOD FOR NOTHING,” ETC.
NEW EDITION.
LONDON:
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
Ballantyne Press
BALLANTYNE, HANSON AND CO.
EDINBURGH AND LONDON
TO A LADY
WHOSE UNTIRING ENERGY AND HISTORICAL RESEARCH
HAVE ADDED LARGELY TO THE LITERATURE
OF OUR COUNTRY,
AND WHOSE ELOQUENT DEFENCE OF A CALUMNIATED QUEEN HAS
IDENTIFIED WITH MARY STUART THE NAME OF
AGNES STRICKLAND,
THE FOLLOWING PAGES ARE RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED
BY
THE AUTHOR.
Bartrams, Hampstead,
June 1862.
THE QUEEN’S MARIES:
A ROMANCE OF HOLYROOD.
CHAPTER I.
Many a smiling plain, many a wooded slope and sequesteredvalley adorns the fair province of Picardy. Noris it without reason that her Norman-looking sons and handsomedaughters are proud of their birth-place; but the mostprejudiced of them will hardly be found to affirm that herseaboard is either picturesque or interesting; and perhaps thestrictest search would fail to discover a duller town thanCalais in the whole bounds of France. With the gloom ofnight settling down upon the long low line of white sandwhich stretches westward from the harbour, and an angrysurge rising on the adjacent shoal, while out to seaward darknessis brooding over the face of the deep, an unwillingtraveller might, indeed, be induced to turn into the narrowill-paved streets of the town, on the seaman-like principle of[2]running for any port in a storm; but it would be from thesheer necessity of procuring food and lodging, not from anydelusive expectation of gaiety and amusement, essential ingredientsin a Frenchman’s every-day life. And yet Calaishas been the scene of many a thrilling incident and stirringevent. Could they speak, those old houses, with their pointedgables, their overhanging roofs, and quaint diamond-panedwindows, they could tell some strange tales of love and war,of French and English chivalry, of deeds of arms performedfor the sake of honour, and beauty, and ambition, and gold—thefour strings on which most of the tunes are played thatspeed the Dance of Death—of failures and suc