The skull and portraits of Henry Stewart, Lord Darnley, and their bearing on the tragedy of Mary, Queen of Scots / by Karl Pearson, F.R.S.; with frontispiece, forty-five plates, four figures in the text and six tissues of cranial contours.

  • Pearson, Karl, 1857-1936.
Date:
[1928]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The skull and portraits of Henry Stewart, Lord Darnley, and their bearing on the tragedy of Mary, Queen of Scots / by Karl Pearson, F.R.S.; with frontispiece, forty-five plates, four figures in the text and six tissues of cranial contours. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    nevertheless, that as she might, perhaps, have given him offence without design, she was willing to make amends as far as he should require, and therefore prayed him not to dissemble the occasion of his displeasure, if any he had, nor to spare her in the least matter. But though the Queen and all others that were present, together with Mons. du Croc used all the interest they were able to persuade him to open his mind, yet he would not at all own that he intended any voyage, or had any discontent, and declared freely that the Queen had given him no occasion for any. Where¬ upon he took leave of her Majesty, and went his way. The account of this meeting of the Privy Council is entirely confirmed by the letter* of Du Croc of October 15, 1566, except that he tells us: “When he [Darnley] and the Queen were a-bed together, her Majesty took occasion to talk to him about the contents of his father’s letter, and besought him to declare to her the ground of his designed voyage ; but in this he would by no means satisfy her.” Further, Du Croc writes that after the Queen, the Lords and he himself had appealed to Darnley, “the King at last declared that he had no ground at all given him for such a deliberation; and thereupon he went out of the chamber of presence, saying to the Queen—-‘Adieu, Madam, you shall not see my face for a long space’ ; after which he likewise bad me farewTell, and next turning himself to the Lords in general, said—‘Gentlemen Adieu’. It is in vain to imagine that he shall be able to raise any disturbance, for there is not one person in all this kingdom, from the highest to the lowest, that regards him any farther than is agreeable to the Queen. And I never saw her Majesty so much beloved, esteemed, and honoured ; nor so great a harmony amongst all her subjects, as at present is by her wise conduct, for I cannot perceive the smallest difference or division.” his letter to the Queen consisted in two points : (i) that she does not “ trust him with so much authority nor is at such pains to advance him, and make him honoured in the nation as she at first did,” and (ii) that “nobody attends him, and that the Nobility desert his company.” To these two points, the letter of the Privy Council (Keith, History, Vol. ii. p. 458) says the Queen has made answer: (i) “ If the case be so he ought to blame himself, not her, for that in the beginning she had conferred so much honour upon him as came afterwards to render herself very uneasy, the credit and reputation wherein she had placed him having served as a shadow to those who have most hainously offended her Majesty; but, howsoever, that she has notwithstanding this, continued to show him such respect, that although they who did perpetrate the murder of her faithful servant, had entered her chamber with his knowledge, having followed him close at the back, and had named him as the chief of their enterprize, yet would she never accuse him thereof, but did always excuse him, and was willing to appear as if she believed it not.” And (ii) “for the Nobility, they come to Court, and pay deference and respect according as they have any matter to do, and as they receive a kindly countenance, but that he is at no pains to gain them and make himself beloved by them, having gone so far as to prohibit these Noblemen to enter his room, whom she had first appointed to be about his person. If the Nobility abandon him, his own deportment towards them is the cause thereof; for if he desire to be followed and attended by them, he must in the first place make them to love him, and to this purpose must render himself amiable to them, without which it will prove a most difficult task for her Majesty to regulate this point, especially to make the Nobility consent that he shall have the management of affairs put into his hands, because she finds them utterly averse to any such matter.” Thus wrote the ministers of Mary, namely, Moray, Maitland and others of Darnley to the Queen-mother of France. And Moray, to emphasise Mary’s loss of affection for Darnley, to prepare for her imputed intrigue with Bothwell, tells the Commissioners of Queen Elizabeth of Mary that “continewing in hir disdayn [of Darnley] she determinat to seclude him fra all knawledge of the publict effaires” (Book of Articles, Hosach, Yol. i. p. 523). Hosach indeed (ibid. p. 447) makes a very good point from the Articles presented by Moray and the other Lords against Queen Mary. He asks: “If the letters were genuine, where was the necessity for the elaborate slanders in the Book of Articles and afterwards transferred to the Detectio ? Why did they make in¬ numerable accusations which they knew to be false, if they had in their possession abundant evidence which they knew to be true?” * Keith, loc. cit. Yol. ii. p. 450.