" The
House of Mar, not inferior in antiquity or grandeur to that of
Drummond, would then have also boasted a Queen among its daughters,
and escaped the stain attached to female frailty, even when it has a
royal lover for its apology. While such feelings preyed on a bosom
naturally proud and severe, they had a corresponding effect on her
countenance, where, with the remains of great beauty, were mingled
traits of inward discontent and peevish melancholy. It perhaps
contributed to increase this habitual temperament, that the Lady
Lochleven had adopted uncommonly rigid and severe views of religion,
imitating in her ideas of reformed faith the very worst errors of the
Catholics, in limiting the benefit of the gospel to those who profess
their own speculative tenets.
In every respect, the unfortunate Queen Mary, now the compulsory
guest, or rather prisoner, of this sullen lady, was obnoxious to her
hostess. Lady Lochleven disliked her as the daughter of Mary of
Guise, the legal possessor of those rights over James's heart and
hand, of which she conceived herself to have been injuriously
deprived; and yet more so as the professor of a religion which she
detested worse than Paganism.
Such was the dame, who, with stately mien, and sharp yet handsome
features, shrouded by her black velvet coif, interrogated the domestic
who steered her barge to the shore, what had become of Lindesay and
Sir Robert Melville. The man related what had passed, and she smiled
scornfully as she replied, "Fools must be flattered, not foughten
with.
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