Murray was shocked, and had his brother expelled the castle; but in April 1568 the faithful George planned her evasion of the guard and joyfully welcomed her on the shore of the lake.  To her standard flocked the Catholic lords, and, safe at Hamilton, Mary, again a queen, swore vengeance upon her foes.  On her way with her army to Dumbarton she met Murray’s force at Langside, near Glasgow.  She had been strong at Carberry Hill with Bothwell at her side.  Here she was weak, for no man of weight or character was with her, and as her men wavered she turned rein and fled.

For sixty miles on bad roads she struggled on, almost without sleep, and living on beggar’s fare.  With no adviser or woman near her, in her panic and despair she took the fatal resolve and crossed the Solway into Elizabeth’s realm, trusting to the magnanimity of the woman whom she had tried to ruin and supplant.  Again her heart had deceived her.  Elizabeth had no pity for a vanquished foe, and for the rest of her miserable life, well nigh a score of years, Mary Stuart was a prisoner.  But in all those years she never ceased to plot and plan for the overthrow of Elizabeth and her own elevation to the Catholic throne of all Britain.

Amidst her many weapons, that of marriage and her personal fascination were not forgotten.  Twice, at least, she tried to make her love affairs serve her political ambition.  Poor, feckless Norfolk was drawn by his vanity and ambition into her net.  Love epistles, breathing eternal devotion, passed between them, but murder was behind it all—­the murder of Elizabeth, and the subjection of England to Spain to work Mary’s vengeance on her foes, and Norfolk lost his head deservedly.

Again she dreamed of marrying the Christian champion, Don Juan of Austria, and conquering and ruling over a Catholic England.  But this plot, too, was discovered, and Don Juan, like all the rest of Mary’s lovers, died miserably.  Mary thenceforward was the centre of Spain’s great conspiracy against England’s queen, but she sought the end no more by love; for that had failed her every time she tried.  She and her cause were beaten because her heart of fire was pitted against a heart of ice, and she lost all because she loved too much.

* * * * *

WASHINGTON IRVING

Life of Christopher Columbus

Washington Irving, American historian and essayist, was born on April 3, 1783, in New York, of a family which came originally from Scotland.  He knew Europe well, and was equally at home in London, Paris, and Madrid; he held the offices, in 1829, of Secretary to the American Embassy in London, and, in 1842, of American Minister in Spain.  He was deeply interested in Spanish history, and besides the “Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus,” he wrote “The Voyages of the Companions of Columbus,” “The Conquest of Granada,” “The Alhambra,”