In Byways of Scottish History. Louis Auguste Barbé

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les peines sens

      D'une extrême tristesse,

      Et en rien n'ay plaisir

      Qu'en regret et désir.

IX

      "Ce qui m'estoit plaisant

      Ores m'est peine dure,

      Le jour le plus luisant

      M'est nuit noire et obscure,

      Et n'est rien si exquis.

      Qui de moi soit requis.

X

      "J'ay au cœur et en l'œil

      Un portraict et image

      Qui figure mon dueil

      En mon pasle visage

      De violettes teint,

      Qui est l'amoureux teint.

XI

      "Pour mon mal estranger

      Je ne m'arreste en place,

      Mais j'ai beau lieu changer

      Si ma douleur j'efface,

      Car mon pis et mon mieux

      Sont les plus déserts lieux.

XII

      "Si en quelque séjour

      Suis, en bois ou en prée

      Soit sur l'aube du jour

      Ou soit sur la vesprée,

      Sans cesse mon cœur sent

      Le regret d'un absent.

XIII

      "Si parfois vers les cieux

      Viens à dresser ma veüe,

      Le doux traict de ses yeux

      Je voy en une nue;

      Soudain le voy en l'eau

      Comme dans une tombeau.

XIV

      "Si je suis en repos,

      Sommeillant sur ma couche,

      J'oy qu'il me tient propos,

      Je le sens qui me touche;

      En labeur ou requoy

      Toujours est prés de moi.

XV

      "Je ne voy autre object

      Pour beau qu'il se présente;

      A qui que soit subject

      Oncques mon cœur consente,

      Exempt de perfection

      A ceste affection.

XVI

      "Mets, chanson, icy frain

      A si triste complainte,

      Dont sera le refrain:

      'Amour vraye et non faincte

      Pour séparation

      N'a diminution'."

XVII

      Tel estoit le doux chant

      De Dame souveraine,

      Qui, mon cœur arrachant

      D'une fuite soudaine,

      Me donna en ce lieu

      Coup mortel d'un Adieu.

      We recall that the stanzas which we have numbered I and II constitute the Song which, according to Brantôme, was composed "at Court"; and that those from VI to XVI, inclusively, are, with an alteration of the first line, and some slight variations elsewhere, what he called the Song of Mary Stuart herself. The title, the three connecting stanzas III-V, and also the last, XVII, were discovered in the Périgueux manuscript

      MAISTER RANDOLPHE'S FANTASIE109

A Suppressed Satire

      About the middle of May, 1566, Robert Melvill was dispatched by Mary, Queen of Scots, as a special envoy to the English Court. The ostensible purpose of his mission was to request Queen Elizabeth to stand godmother to the royal infant whose birth was shortly expected.110 And it was, indeed, with this object that his journey had, in the first instance, been resolved upon. But, three or four days before the time originally fixed for his departure,111 he had been hastily summoned to Holyrood and ordered to set out at once, and with all speed, on an errand of a very different kind. According to the tenor of his later instructions, he was the bearer not of a friendly message from Mary Stuart to her loving cousin, but of a bitter complaint from the Queen of Scotland to the English sovereign. Mary had been informed by one of her agents at Berwick that "there was a booke wrytten agaynst her, of her lyf and govermente".112 Though possessing no actual knowledge of the contents of the obnoxious libel and acquainted with its general tone and purport only, she had "taken it so grevouslye as nothy¯ge of longe time had come so near her hearte".113 Not only did she resent the insult as a sovereign, but she also felt the outrage as a woman, and expressed her fear lest, having come to her so suddenly and at so critical a time, the unwelcome intelligence "sholde breed daynger to her byrthe or hurte to her selfe".114 And Melvill had been hurried off to London to inform Elizabeth of the crime committed by one of her subjects, "that in tyme this worke mighte be suppressed and",115 more important still, "condign punishment taken upon the wryter"; for by this means alone, the indignant Queen declared, could it be made apparent that he was not "mayntayned against her, not only by advise and counsell to move her subiects agaynste her, but also by defamations and falce reports mayke her odious to the werlde".116

      The work at which such grievous offence had been taken was entitled Maister Randolphe's Fantasie, and the informant who had given Mary notice of its publication had also assured her that it was in reality what it purported to be, the production of the agent who, till within a short time previously, had represented England at the Scottish Court. She accepted the charge without question and without doubt. In her mind Thomas Randolph was associated with all the intrigues which had culminated in the open defection and organized opposition of the most powerful of her nobles, and she felt conscious of having treated him with a harshness calculated to add an ardent desire for revenge to the malevolent intentions by which she believed him to be actuated. During the last six months of his residence in Edinburgh he had been subjected to a series of petty vexations, of personal attacks and of open accusations, which even his avowed partisanship could not justify, and which were not less discreditable to the instigators of them than insulting to the sovereign whom he represented. On the formation of the league to which Mary's marriage with Darnley had given rise he had been threatened with punishment "for practising with the Queen's rebels".117 Mary herself had shown her displeasure in so marked a manner that Randolph had sent to England a formal complaint of the difficulties thrown into his way by her refusal to give him access to her presence, even on official business.118 When at last she did grant him an audience, it was not for purposes of political negotiation, but solely to upbraid him "for his many evil offices" towards her.119 The dread of immediate imprisonment,120 and the personal violence to which he was actually subjected,121 had rendered his position so intolerable that he petitioned for permission to retire to Berwick.122 His request was denied him; but the consequences of the refusal soon showed how ill-advised had been the action of those who had insisted upon his continuance in functions for which he now lacked the essential conditions of favour and security. In the beginning of the following year he was

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