In 1561, less than a year after her widowhood, Mary set sail for Scotland, never to return.  The great high-decked ships which escorted her sailed into the harbor of Leith, and she pressed on to Edinburgh.  A depressing change indeed from the sunny terraces and fields of France!  In her own realm were fog and rain and only a hut to shelter her upon her landing.  When she reached her capital there were few welcoming cheers; but as she rode over the cobblestones to Holyrood, the squalid wynds vomited forth great mobs of hard-featured, grim-visaged men and women who stared with curiosity and a half-contempt at the girl queen and her retinue of foreigners.

The Scots were Protestants of the most dour sort, and they distrusted their new ruler because of her religion and because she loved to surround herself with dainty things and bright colors and exotic elegance.  They feared lest she should try to repeal the law of Scotland’s Parliament which had made the country Protestant.

The very indifference of her subjects stirred up the nobler part of Mary’s nature.  For a time she was indeed a queen.  She governed wisely.  She respected the religious rights of her Protestant subjects.  She strove to bring order out of the chaos into which her country had fallen.  And she met with some success.  The time came when her people cheered her as she rode among them.  Her subtle fascination was her greatest source of strength.  Even John Knox, that iron-visaged, stentorian preacher, fell for a time under the charm of her presence.  She met him frankly and pleaded with him as a woman, instead of commanding him as a queen.  The surly ranter became softened for a time, and, though he spoke of her to others as “Honeypot,” he ruled his tongue in public.  She had offers of marriage from Austrian and Spanish princes.  The new King of France, her brother-in-law, would perhaps have wedded her.  It mattered little to Mary that Elizabeth of England was hostile.  She felt that she was strong enough to hold her own and govern Scotland.

But who could govern a country such as Scotland was?  It was a land of broils and feuds, of clan enmities and fierce vendettas.  Its nobles were half barbarous, and they fought and slashed at one another with drawn dirks almost in the presence of the queen herself.  No matter whom she favored, there rose up a swarm of enemies.  Here was a Corsica of the north, more savage and untamed than even the other Corsica.

In her perplexity Mary felt a woman’s need of some man on whom she would have the right to lean, and whom she could make king consort.  She thought that she had found him in the person of her cousin, Lord Darnley, a Catholic, and by his upbringing half an Englishman.  Darnley came to Scotland, and for the moment Mary fancied that she had forgotten Bothwell.  Here again she was in love with love, and she idealized the man who came to give it to her.  Darnley seemed, indeed, well worthy to be loved, for he was tall and handsome, appearing well on horseback and having some of the accomplishments which Mary valued.