affectionately mentioned in his last moments. | esting they may be to the diligent antiOn it was engraven a simple English inscrip- quary. The family correspondence is less tion. A costly and magnificent jewel, now copious and curious than that which we known as the "Lennox Jewel," was ordered to have met with in some other volumes of be made by the widow of Lennox as a memo- Mr. Fraser's series; but on the other rial of her late husband in another form. This interesting work of art is now the property of hand it proceeds from persons far more her present Majesty. illustrious, and has therefore more historical value. We shall conclude this article by borrowing from Mr. Fraser's pages two or three of these royal autographs, hitherto unpublished, and they shall ap pear in their original dress, which is grotesque and amusing. And so ended the last of the true Earls of Lennox. His countess, the Lady Margaret, survived him about six years; she died at Hackney on March 9, 1578, and was interred in Westminister Abbey, where her monument has recently been restored to its pristine splendor.* At this period in the history of this great family Mr. Fraser suspends his labors and his narrative. Upon the death of his grandfather the earldom descended to King James VI., then in the sixth year of his age. A re-grant of it was made to the king's uncle, Lord Charles Stewart, but he died four years afterwards, leaving an only daughter, the Lady Arabella Stewart, whose romantic history fills another page in the melancholy annals of her race. When Esmé Stewart, head of the Aubigny branch of the Lennox, came to Scotland, the king, his cousin, took him into special 'favor, and he was created not only Earl, but Duke of Lennox, with possession of the family estates. His male descendants ended in 1672 with Charles, the sixth duke of the second line, upon which the estates devolved on King Charles II. as the nearest collateral heir. The male line of Sir John Stewart of Darnley, first Lord of Aubigny in France, terminated on the death of Prince Henry Stewart, Cardinal York, in 1807. The heir of line of the Dukes of Lennox is the present Lord Darnley; his ancestor, Mr. John Bligh, being the grandson of Lady Catherine Stewart, a sister of the sixth duke of Lennox, was created Earl of Darnley in the peerage of Ireland in 1725. The second volume of Mr. Fraser's work consists of a collection of the ancient charters and correspondence of the Lennox family, which are the fruits of his elaborate researches in the muniment rooms of Scotland. The earliest of these charters date from the year 1200; and there is scarcely an incident related in these volumes of family history which is not substantiated by documentary evidence. still in existence. We shall not attempt to introduce our readers to records of such venerable antiquity, however inter By a slip of the pen Mr. Fraser states that this monument is in Henry VIII's Chapel: he means, of course, Henry VII.'s. 66 As to The eminent service of Captain Thomas Crawford in the capture of Dumbarton Castle under the regency of Lennox has been more than once alluded to in these pages. There is an amusing letter to this worthy from Hew Crawfurd of Crawfurd John, in Lanarkshire (we presume his son or nephew), dated from Edinburgh in 1598, in which the writer says: zowr quhyit peis (white peas) their is nane to be haid for the present, bot sa sone as I can try ony I sall send sum to zow. haif coft (bought) twa pair spectakillis with ane kace for awcht schillingis; thay ar verie few and evill to be had in this towne as this berar saw; bot the first that cums hame that is guid I sail by ane pair to zow." Captain Thomas was a great favorite of James VI., and Mr. Fraser gives us in facsimile the following curious documents. The first is written in a fine, scholarlike hand when the king was but eight years old. I HOLOGRAPH LETTER OF KING JAMES VI. IN HIS NINTH YEAR, TO CAPTAIN THOMAS CRAUFURD OF JORDANHILL, WITH TWO RATIFICATIONS, ALSO HOLOGRAPH OF THE KING: DATED RESPECTIVELY SEPTEMBER 15, 1575, SEPTEMBER 5, 1584, AND MARCH 23, 1591. Capten Craufurd: I haue hard sic report of your gud seruice done to me from the beginning of the weiris agains my onfreindis, as I sall sum day remember the same, God willing, to your greit contentment. In the main quhyle be of gud confort, and reserue you to that tyme with patience, being assurit of my fauour. Faire weil. 1575. xv September. Your gud freind, JAMES R. Ve aproue thir foure lynis aboue writtinn with oure auin hand be this present. At Fakland, the fift day of September 1584. JAMES R. parfyte yeiris, and past all reuocation. JAMES R. To my speciall gud seruant Capten Craufurd of Jordanhill. 2 Upon the death of Elizabeth, James ad- | effectuouslie, traist cusing, that ye in the menedressed the following letter, dated from tyme hald your self constant in my seruice, Holyrood March 27, 1603, to Ludovic, and aduerteiss your freinds and neighbouris to second Duke of Lennox (the son of Esmé Stewart), calling upon him to accompany the court to England. This personage was afterwards created Earl of Richmond in 1614 and Duke of Richmond in 1623, but he died soon after his last creation without issue. do the samin and to be in readienes to serue done trewlie afoir this tyme, speciallic at the me quhan the occatioun sall offer, as ye haue last battall, quhair (as I am adwerteist) ye haue done rycht weill your deuoir, ye beand on your featis, qahilk sall nocht be forgit be me in tyme coming. With the help of God I houp to returne agane about the xv day of August nixt, with gud company, for the effect Dearest cousing and counsallour, we great foresaid, God willing. This I beleue ye will you hertlie wele. Hauing be our seruand lait- do, as my traist is and wes ay in yow. lie gevin aduertisement to you of the nearnes for to mak ane end of my bill, I will commit of the death of our vmquhile dearest sister, yow to the protectioun of the eternall God. the Quene of England, and desirit yow to pre-At Carlell, the xx day of Maij 1568. pair yourselff for our seruice, and accumpany ing ws as the wechtines of that mater requirit: We haue now ressauit the certantie of hir deceis, and that we ar proclamit thair King of England, Scotland, France, and Ireland, with all solempnitie, and, thairfoir, haue thocht guid to gif zow aduertisement thairof, and to desire zou to addresse zourselff hither to ws, in zour maist cumelie and decent maner, to attend vpoun and accumpany ws, and in cais ze can not, in dew tyme, be ready and prepairit befoir our taiking journay thither, that ze faill not to follow ws with all diligence, as ze tender our plesour and seruice. Sua we commit zou to God. From Halyruidhous, the xxvii of March 1603. JAMES R. To our dearest cousing and counsallour the Duke of Lennox. Mr. Fraser has been able to add some valuable documents to the large collection of the letters of Queen Mary already printed by Prince Labanoff and others. There are no less than twelve letters to the Earl of Cassilis, written principally at the moment of the queen's flight, when she had reached Carlisle to place herself under the treacherous protection of her sister queen. These letters were printed for private circulation in 1849 by Lord Ailsa, but as they are little known one of them may be read with interest here. LETTER, INTIMATING THE QUEEN'S FLIGHT TO CARLISLE AFTER LANGSIDE, DATED CARLISLE, MAY 20, 1568. Traist cusing, Forsamekle as I for the salftie of my bodie, findand na suir acces nor place within my realme to retire me at this tyme, as ye may knaw, I wes constraignit to leue the samin and to pas in this cuntrey of Ingland, quhair I assuir yow I haue bene rycht weill ressauit and honorablie accompaigned and traicted. I haue deliberit to pas fortherward in France to pray the King, my gude broder, to support and help me to delyuer and releue my realme of sic rebellionis, troublis and oppressionis that now regnis within the samin, and to depart furth of this toun the xxiiij day of this instant moneth. Thairfore I pray yow And MARIE R. I pray you my lord excuss this stamp, becauss the Quene hes na uthir at this tyme. To my Lord Erle of Cassillis. To this must be added two other documents of more than ordinary importance, which are here for the first time printed. It is well known that the marriage of Bothwell to his wife, Lady Jean or Jonet Gordon, was annulled, in order to enable him to contract marriage with the queen, on the ground that no regular dispensation had been obtained so as to enable the first named persons to be united in matrimony by the Church, they being "related to each other in the double fourth degree of conhistorians that this essential dispensation sanguinity;" and it has been held by all (if it ever existed) had been destroyed. The document itself has now been found in the charter chest of the Duke of Sutherland at Dunrobin. It seems that it remained in the custody of Lady Jean, the married seven years afterwards, in 1573, repudiated wife of Bothwell, and as she Alexander, the eleventh Earl of Suther land, she took it with her into the reposito ries of that noble house, where it has passed to her present descendants. The dispensation was granted by John Hamilton, Archbishop of St. Andrews, and legate of the pope, in full ecclesiastical form. It follows, therefore, from the discovery of this instrument, that the marriage of Bothwell to Lady Jean Gordon was perfectly legal and canonical, and that the grounds on which it was dissolved were false. That being the case, his subsequent marriage with the queen was no marriage at all, but an adulterous connection between two persons, both previously married, who procured their freedom by the murder of the husband of the one, and the betrayal of the wife of the other. The discovery of the dispensation completes the evidence of the inexpressible turpitude and guilt of the whole transaction. Its existence was first noticed by Dr. John Stuart in the second Report of the Commissioners for Historical Manuscripts in the year 1871. Lady Jean Gordon long survived all these events, and died in the year 1629 at the age of eighty-four. It is curious that the wife of Bothwell should have lived far into the reign of Charles I. Another remarkable document, now printed apparently for the first time, is the revocation by Mary Queen of Scots of her resignation of the crown of Scotland in favor of her son. This instrument was drawn up in 1568, but the copy existing in the charter chest of the Earl of Haddington is not dated or signed. It consists of a vigorous and voluminous denunciation of the traitors who caused "this monstrous and unnaturall defection and revolt of our detestabill subjects," especially James, callit Erle Morray, quhome we of ane spurious bastard (althocht namit our brother) promovit fra ane religious monk to Erle and Lord," etc., and constitutes James, Duke of Chatelherault, the universal and only protector, regent, and governor of the realm. The whole document is extremely curious, for it contains, in language more vituperative than judicial, the whole of Mary's case against her enemies; but it is far too long to be quoted in this place. We now take leave of Mr. Fraser by offering him our thanks for the instruction and amusement he has afforded us, and we hope that he will long continue this series of portly volumes; the more so, as we have heard that he is now engaged in examining the papers of the great house of Scott of Buccleuch, which cannot fail to be of uncommon interest, especially in regard of the events of the seventeenth century. SARAH DE BERENGER. BY JEAN INGELOW. CHAPTER VIII. THIS plan of Miss de Berenger's appeared to her nephew so preposterous, that he gave it no better reception than a somewhat ironical smile; then he finished his breakfast, and what more his aunt had to say he heard without receiving the sense. Yet, in less than one month, he was glad to carry out the whole scheme, almost to the letter. In about a week he found that he was living precisely up to his income, and had nothing to spare for such contingencies as illness, nor anything to spend on Dick's education. At the same time, Miss de Berenger having said vaguely that no doubt little Dick would soon have a governess, a widow lady, a friend of hers, who lived half a mile off, came and proposed advantageous terms, if her son might come as a day pupil, and take his lessons with Dick. Her boy, she said, was lonely; he was delicate; he was her only child. Might he ride over on his pony? She was sure they should agree about terms. On this hint Miss de Berenger spoke again, and got leave from Felix to write to Mrs. Snaith; which she did, proposing to the poor woman to come and live in a little cottage then vacant, and pay twenty pounds a year for the education of the two children. Mrs. Snaith did not often laugh, but she laughed heartily when she got that letter; felt as if she had been politely invited to step into the lion's den, and put it aside, taking nearly a fortnight for considering the precise terms in which she could decline it. But lo, at the end of that term scarlet fever broke out in the farmhouse where Miss Price the governess lived, and she felt at once a longing desire to get away from the place. She only took her little cottage by the week; she could hire a cart to carry away her furniture to the station. She had spent a good deal of money on her late trip to the shore, and could not possibly afford another. How cheap this plan was- how easy! And, after all, no one but her herself had any power over the children; no one could possibly prevent her taking them away again from these De Berengers whenever she chose. She drew out the letter again. There was no time to be lost; one more day brought her news of another case of fever, and without loss of an hour she wrote a respectful letter to Miss de Berenger, setting forth that she would appear with the children the very next evening, and what little furniture she had should come with her. Miss de Berenger had seldom been happier. She rushed to accept the widow's proposition, then she flew to arrange matters with Miss Thimbleby, which she did in such a satisfactory fashion, that this young lady was to receive a small salary for her services, together with vegetarian board, lodging, and leave to educate the little sister; Felix, on his part, taking the remainder of what Mrs. Snaith and the th 20 12 widow lady were to pay, so as to reimburse himself for his outlay, and pay also for the small quantity of cheap furniture that had to be bought, his main advantage being that he was to get his little brother taught and looked after for nothing. It was an anxious and trying day for Mrs. Snaith that took her, her children, and her goods, to the new home. Several times during the course of it imagination transported her among the people she was going to. How would they receive her? What questions would they ask? She thought of them as excited also, as busy about her affairs, for Miss de Berenger had assured her that the little. cottage should be swept down for her, and that she should find a comfortable supper ready there for herself and her little charge. There was a certain amount of bustle, and some excitement also, that day at the parsonage; not in the minds of Felix or his brother, for they were gone out for the day; and not concerning Mrs. Snaith. If she could have known what it was that effaced her from their thoughts, it would have helped her, as such things always do, to realize how small the place was that she filled in creation. It is hard, sometimes, when one had thought that one's self and one's affairs were filling the minds of others, to find that one has been utterly forgotten; but it is positively humbling to discover, as is sometimes our lot, what a small, what an utterly worthless thing it was that blotted us out. little boy, who, with his legs hanging down, sat regarding it with a sheepish and shamefaced air, as one so used to be accused, when any sort of mischief had been per petrated, that he was expecting every moment to hear the loss of the basket confi. dently laid at his door. Just then a youth, who had been hired to weed, came clattering across the paved yard in his hobnailed boots. "I forgot the loft," said Jolliffe; and she put her head out at the casement window. 66 Andrew, you go and look in the loft over the stable if the big clothes-basket is there." "I know it can't be there, mem," answered the boy. "I didn't ask you what you knew," said Mrs. Jolliffe, with the dignity of full conviction. "If it's not in a likely place, it stands to reason that it must be in an unlikely. You go and do as I bid you." "Yes, mem," said the boy; and he burst into a chuckling laugh, and instantly was grave again. "That boy Andrew is the awkwardest in the parish," continued Mrs. Jolliffe; "but when I say the basket couldn't have gone without hands, I don't mean but what his hands are clean, in a manner of speaking." "It ain't there," said Andrew, returning, and chuckling again. Whereupon he was reproved by all parties for things in general, including his having been frequently seen to laugh even at his work, as if nothing was of any account; which, they However, in this case, it cannot be said observed, had very probably emboldened to have been a small thing-quite the some tramp to carry off the missing article. contrary. It was a very large thing; there He was then made to fetch the lightest was the oddness of the matter. And how wheelbarrow from the potato garden, and so large a thing could possibly be lost, in that the clothes for the wash were missing, or mislaid, in such a scantily solemnly wheeled away. furnished house, was the whole mystery. The soft shadows of evening were com The thing, in short, for sake of which Mrs. |ing on, and everything about the parsonage Snaith passed out of mind, was a clothes-was very still, when Miss de Berenger basket. came bustling up to the kitchen door, calling for Dick. Jolliffe, the servant, had looked all over for it, and was out of breath. A girl who had been blamed, and had wept in consequence, was now helping the others to express the common astonishment, and counting off on her fingers, as Jolliffe enumerated them, all the places, likely and unlikely, that had been looked into in vain. A large bundle of clothes, ready tied up to be put into this basket, was lying in the mean time on the clean kitchen floor, and the washerwoman sat in judgment upon it, deciding that it was too heavy to be carried as it was, even with the help of her "I cannot find him anywhere, Jolliffe. I want him to come this minute, and see his little cousins. They have just arrived at the cottage with their nurse, and I told them they should see him." Jolliffe had been leaning out at the dairy window, talking to a market gardener, who also kept a shop in the neighboring town, in which he sold both fruit and grocery, and with whom Felix, under Miss de Berenger's advice, had made an agreement to exchange some of his superfluous fruit for tea and other groceries. She now started forth, suddenly remembering that she had not seen Dick for a long time, the | regard of it's being so close to the old churchyard, I'll tell you. gardener following. "Wherever can the dear child be!" she clothes-basket." exclaimed. "I should have looked after him before, if I hadn't had those lettices on my mind. They've all come to their hearts at once; the dairy floor is all over green things that master cut for fear their heads should spread." "That comes of the vegetable ladies," observed the gardener. "I'm sure I don't grudge anything its growth, not but what I shall lose by all those apricots being ripe together." "Wherever can the dear child be!" repeated Jolliffe. "Master Dick!" she shouted, "where are you? Come, it's supper time, and your aunt wants you, lovey." A childish whoop answered, and was echoed from the old church tower, which was close to the garden. "I can't tell where he is," she observed; "the sound seemed to come from all round." Then she turned to the east, and exclaimed, "Why, goodness!-why, good gracious me, if ever I saw anything so strange in my life, Mr. Bolton! There's ever so many stars shining in the chestnuttree." Mr. Bolton looked. There stood the great horse-chestnut tree, in all the splendor of its rich, deep foliage, and there certainly was a light shining between the leaves. Not the moon, for she hung a yellow crescent, that yielded no light at all; not Venus, for she, of all stars, was the only one out; but a warm orange, steady light that illuminated the whole centre of the tree, and shone through the leaves as well as between them. The soft veil of the gloaming came on, and made this light every moment brighter; while such a silence seemed to gather and rise from under the trees, that Jolliffe and her companion, as they slowly and cautiously approached, did not care to speak. Then the woman hung back, the light looked so strange; and the man went under, looked up, and came back with a smile. "I'll give you two guesses regarding what's up in that tree!" he exclaimed. It's in the old Jolliffe's surprise made her good-tempered. Again she came under the tree, and looked up. "This must be one of the dear child's antics," she observed; "but however in the world did he get it up there? Must be fifteen feet high. What a horrid dangerous trick!" "I don't see that," answered Mr. Bolton. "He can climb like a cat. What he's done is this: he's drawn it up, do you see, by that long dangle of clothes-line to the fork where those three branches spread out, and there, as he stood above, he's managed to land it pretty steady, and he's tied it with the rope in and out among the boughs, and then he's fetched the stable lantern." "And that boy Andrew helped him, I'll be bound!" exclaimed Mrs. Jolliffe. "I shouldn't wonder if he's in it now. Master Dicky dear, you'll speak to your own Jolly, won't you?" A good deal of creaking was now heard in the wicker-work of the basket, but there was no answer. "Oh, well, Mr. Bolton," remarked Mrs. Jolliffe, in a high-raised voice, "it's a clear case that he ain't here; I'd better go in and tell his brother that he's lost." A good deal more creaking, and something like a chuckle, was now heard in the basket, and presently over the edge peered the face of a great owl, a favorite companion of the child's. It was dusk now under the tree, and the creature's eyes glared in the light of the lantern. Mrs. Jolliffe, being startled, called him a beast; but he looked far more like the graven image of a cherub on a tomb, for nothing of him could be seen but his widespread wings and his face, while he looked down and appeared to think the visit of these two persons intrusive and unseasonable. "Well, old goggle-eyes," quoth Mr. Bolton, "so you're there too, are you? If you know where your master is, which appears likely for you're as cunning as many Christians, and full as ugly — you'd better tell him that, as sure as fate, we're going to fetch his brother out if he doesn't come down." "Can't I see that it's a light?" cried Mrs. Jolliffe, with much impatience. "I don't see, though you have bought the Ay, that we are,” added Mrs. Jolliffe. fruit off the very walls, that I've any call" Why, it'll be dark presently, and how is to pick out answers for your riddles in he to get down in the dark?" master's own garden, at this time o' night." "Of course it's a light," replied Mr. Bolton, "but what's the light in? Well, if you don't like to come any nigher, in The round, rosy face of little Dick was now reared up beside the face of the owl. He looked like a cherub too, but with a difference. |