Five months after Mary's death her body was buried at Peter borough, whence in 1612 it was removed to King Henry VII.'s chapel in Westminster Abbey. It still lies there in a sumptuous tomb erected her son, James VI.
Mary Stuart was in many respects the creature of her age, of her creed, and of her station; but the noblest and most note worthy qualities of her nature were independent of rank, opinion or time. Even the detractors who defend her conduct on the plea that she was a dastard and a dupe are compelled in the same breath to retract this implied reproach, and to admit, with illogical acclamation and incongruous applause, that the world never saw more splendid courage at the service of more brilliant intelligence, that a braver if not "a rarer spirit never did steer humanity." A kinder or more faithful friend, a deadlier or more dangerous enemy, it would be impossible to dread or to desire. Passion alone could shake the double fortress of her impregnable heart and ever active brain. The passion of love, after very sufficient experience, she apparently and naturally outlived; the passion of hatred and revenge was as inextinguishable in her inmost nature as the emo tion of loyalty and gratitude. Of repentance it would seem that she knew as little as of fear, having been trained from her infancy in a religion where the decalogue was supplanted by the creed. Adept as she was in the most exquisite delicacy of dissimulation, the most salient note of her original disposition was daring rather than subtlety. Beside or behind the voluptuous or intellectual attractions of beauty and culture, she had about her the fresher charm of a fearless and frank simplicity, a genuine and enduring pleasure in small and harmless things no less than in such as were neither. In 1562 she amused herself for some days by living "with her little troop" in the house of a burgess of St. Andrews "like a burgess's wife," assuring the English ambassador that he should not find the queen there,—"nor I know not myself where she is become." From Sheffield lodge, 12 years later, she applied to the archbishop of Glasgow and the cardinal of Guise for some pretty little dogs, to be sent her in baskets very warmly packed,—"f or besides reading and working, I take pleasure only in all the little animals that I can get." For her own freedom of will and of way', of passion and of action, she cared much; for her creed she cared something; for her country she cared less than nothing. She would have flung Scotland with England into the hell fire of Spanish Catholicism rather than forgo the faintest chance of personal re venge. Elizabeth, so shamefully her inferior in personal loyalty,
fidelity and gratitude, was as clearly her superior on the one all important point of patriotism. (A. C. S. ; R. S. R.) BIBLIOGRAPHY.—The biography of Mary Stuart being virtually the history of Scotland during the period covered by her life, with which the history of England at the same period is also largely concerned, the chief events in which she figured are related in all the general Histories of both countries. The most important original authorities are the voluminous State Papers of the period, with other ms. documents preserved at the British Museum, the Came bridge University Library, Hatfield and elsewhere. See especially the Reports of the Hist. MSS. Commission; Calendar of State Papers relating to Scotland and Mary Queen of Scots (Scottish Record Publ., 1898) ; Calendar of Letters and State Papers relating to English Affairs, principally in the Archives at Simancas (vols. 1892– 1899) ; and the Calendars of State Papers: Domestic Series, Edw. VI.– James I.; Foreign Series, Elizabeth; Venice Series.
The most important unofficial contemporary works are the Histories of John Knox, Bishop John Lesley, George Buchanan, and Robert Lindsay of Pitscottie; the Diurnal of Remarkable Occurrents from the death of James IV. till 1575 (Bannatyne club, 1833) ; Robert Birrell's "Diary," in Sir. J. G. Dalzell's Fragments of Scottish History (Edin burgh, 1798), etc. Much of Mary's own correspondence will be found in Prince A. Labanoff's Lettres inedites, 1558-87 (1839), and Lettres, instructions, et memoires de Marie Stuart (7 vols., London, 1844), selections from which have been translated into English by W. Turnbull in Letters of Mary Queen of Scots (1845) , and by Agnes Strickland in Letters of Mary Queen of Scots and Documents con nected with her Personal History (3 vols., 1842). Recently the following three publications have added to our knowledge of original sources: Conyers Read: Bardon Papers (published by the Royal Historical Society in its Camden Society Series) ; J. Pollen, The Babington Conspiracy (Scottish History Society) ; and M. Wood, Balcarres Papers (Scottish History Society).
Among recent works may be mentioned F. A. MacCunn, Mary Stuart (19o5) ; Andrew Lang, The Mystery of Mary Stuart (1900) ; R. S. Rait and A. T. Cameron, King James's Secret; Negotiations relating to the Execution of Mary, Queen of Scots (1927) .