On various parts of his castle he inscribed, as expressing his religious and political creed, the legend, UN DIEU, UN FOY, UN ROY, UN Loy. He declined to be promoted to an earldom, which Queen Mary offered him at the same time when she advanced her natural brother to be Earl of Mar, and afterwards of Murray. On his refusing this honour, Mary wrote, or caused to be written, the following lines in Latin and French : Sunt comites, ducesque alii; sunt denique reges; Sethoni dominum sit satis esse mihi. Il y a des comptes, des roys, des ducs: ainsi Which may be thus rendered: Earl, duke, or king, be thou that list to be, Seton, thy lordship is enough for me. This distich reminds us of the "pride which aped humility," in the motto of the house of Couci: Je suis ni roy, ni prince aussi ; Je suis le Seigneur de Coucy. After the battle of Langside, Lord Seton was obliged to retire abroad for safety, and was an exile for two years, during which he was reduced to the necessity of driving a waggon in Flanders for his subsistence. He rose to favour in James VI.'s reign, and resuming his paternal property, had himself painted in his waggoner's dress, and in the act of driving a wain with four horses, on the north end of a stately gallery at Seton Castle. He appears to have been fond of the arts; for there exists a beautiful family-piece of him in the centre of his family. Mr Pinkerton, in his Scottish Iconographia, published an engraving of this curious portrait. The original is the property of Lord Somerville, nearly connected with the Seton family, and is at present at his Lordship's fishing villa of the Pavilion, near Melrose. MAIDEN OF MORTON.-P. 305, 1. 1. A species of guillotine which the Regent Morton brought down from Halifax, certainly at a period considerably later than intimated in the tale. He was himself the first that suffered by the engine. HISTORICAL ROMANCES. VOL. VI. THE ABBOT. THE RESIGNATION OF QUEEN MARY.- The details of this remarkable event are, as given in the preceding chapter, imaginary; but the outline of the events is historical. Sir Robert Lindesay, brother to the author of the Memoirs, was at first intrusted with the delicate commission of persuading the imprisoned Queen to resign her crown. As he flatly refused to interfere, they determined to send the Lord Lindesay, one of the rudest and most violent of their own faction, with instructions first to use fair persuasions, and if these did not succeed, to enter into harder terms. Knox associates Lord Ruthven with Lindesay in this alarming commission. He was the son of that Lord Ruthven who was prime agent in the murder of Rizzio; and little mercy was to be expected from his conjunction with Lindesay. The employment of such rude tools argued a resolution on the part of those who had the Queen's person in their power, to proceed to the utmost extremities, should they find Mary obstinate. To avoid this pressing danger, Sir Robert Melville was dispatched by them to Lochleven, carrying with him, concealed in the scabbard of his sword, letters to the Queen from the Earl of Athole, Maitland of Lethington, and even from Throgmorton, the English ambassador, who was then favourable to the unfortunate Mary, conjuring her to yield to the necessity of the times, and to subscribe such deeds as Lindesay should lay before her, without being startled by their tenor; and assuring her that her doing so, in the state of captivity under which she was placed, would, neither in law, honour, or conscience, be binding upon her when she should obtain her liberty. Submitting, by the advice of one part of her subjects, to the menace of the others, and learning that Lindesay was arrived in a boasting, that is, threatening humour, the Queen, "with some reluctancy, and with tears," saith Knox, subscribed one deed resigning her crown to her infant son, and another establishing the Earl of Murray regent. It seems agreed by historians, that Lindesay behaved with great brutality on the occasion. The deeds were signed 24th July, 1567. "THE MOST FAITHLESS SPY SINCE THE DAYS OF GANELON."-P. 92, 1. 5, (from bottom.) Gan, Gano, or Ganelon of Mayence, is, in the Romances on the subject of Charlemagne and his Paladins, always represented as the traitor by whom the Christian champions are betrayed. "REPRESENTING THE LORD OF THE Land."P. 116, 1. 4. At Scottish fairs, the bailie, or magistrate deputed by the lord in whose name the meeting is held, attends the fair with his guard, decides trifling disputes, and punishes on the spot any petty delinquencies. His attendants are usually armed with halberds, and, sometimes at least, escorted by music. Thus in the "Life and Death of Habbie Simpson," we are told of that famous minstrel, "At fairs he play'd before the spear-men, Steel bonnets, jacks, and swords shone clear then, Now wha shall play before sic weir-men, Since Habbie's dead!" MOTHER NICNEVEN.-P. 129, 1. 7. This was the name given to the grand Mother Witch, the very Hecate of Scottish popular superstition. Her name was bestowed, in one or two instances, upon sorceresses, who were held to resemble her by their superior skill in "Hell's black Grammar." THE DARK GREY MAN,-P. 166, 1. 5, By an ancient, though improbable tradition, the Douglasses are said to have derived their name from a champion who had greatly distinguished himself in an action. When the king demanded by whom the battle had been won, the attendants are said to have answered, "Sholto Douglas, sir; which is said to mean, "Yonder dark grey man." But the name is undoubtedly territorial, and taken from Douglas river and dale. SUPPOSED CONSPIRACY AGAINST THE LIFE OF A romancer, to use a Scottish phrase, wants but a hair to make a tether of. The whole detail of the steward's supposed conspiracy against the life of Mary, is grounded upon an expression in one of her letters, which affirms, that Jasper Dryfesdale, one of the Laird of Lochleven's servants, had threatened to murder William Dou |