XIV. The Murder of the King of Scots. .....................................................................
The catastrophe of Henry Stewart, Lord Darnley, the unfortunate husband of
Mary Queen of Scots, is the subject of this ballad. It is here related in that partial
imperfect manner, in which such an event would naturally strike the subjects of
another kingdom; of which he was a native. Henry appears to have been a vain,
capricious, worthless young man, of weak understanding and dissolute morals. But
the beauty of his person, and the inexperience of his youth, would dispose mankind to
treat him with an indulgence, which the cruelty of his murder would afterwards
convert into the most tender pity and regret: and then imagination would not fail to
adorn his memory with all those virtues he ought to have possessed. This will account
for the extravagant eulogium bestowed upon him in the first stanza, &c.
Henry Lord Darnley was eldest son of the Earl of Lennox, by the Lady
Margaret Douglas, niece of Henry VIII. and daughter of Margaret Queen of Scotland
by the Earl of Angus, whom that Princess married after the death of James IV.
Darnley, who had been born and educated in England, was but in his twenty-first
year, when he was murdered, Feb. 9, 1567-8. This crime was perpetrated by the Earl
of Bothwell, not out of respect to the memory of Rizzio, but in order to pave the way
for his own marriage with the queen.
This ballad (printed, with a few corrections, from the Editor's folio MS.)
seems to have been written soon after Mary's escape into England, in 1568, see ver.
- It will be remembered (at ver. 5), that this princess was Queen Dowager of
France, having been first married to Francis II. who died Dec. 4, 1560.
WOE worth, woe worth thee, false Scotlànde
For thou hast ever wrought by sleight;
The worthyest prince that ever was borne,
You hanged under a cloud by night.
The queene of France a letter wrote,
And sealed itt with harte and ringe;
And bade him come Scotland within,
And shee wold marry and crowne him kinge.
To be a king is a pleasant thing,
To bee a prince unto a peere:
But you have heard, and soe have I too,
A man may well buy gold too deare.
There was an Italyan in that place,
Was as well beloved as ever was hee,
Lord David was his name,
Chamberlaine to the queene was hee.
If the king had risen forth of his place,
He wold have sate him downe in the cheare,
And tho itt beseemed him not so well,
Altho the kinge had been present there.
Some lords in Scotlande waxed wroth,
And quarrelled with him for the nonce;