The rooms were large, but the interior finishing of them was very plain.

The walls were hung with antique-looking pictures. The furniture, too, looked very ancient and venerable.

"Who was Lord Darnley?" asked Waldron.

"He was Queen Mary's husband," replied Mr. George.

"Then he was the king, I suppose," said Waldron.

"No," replied Mr. George, "not at all. A king is one who inherits the throne in his own right. When the throne descends to a woman, she is the queen; but if she marries, her husband does not become king."

"What is he then?" said Waldron.

"Nothing but the queen's husband," said Mr. George.

"Hoh!" exclaimed Waldron, in a tone of contempt.

"He does not acquire any share of the queen's power," continued Mr.

George, "because he marries her. She is the sovereign alone afterwards just as much as before."

"And so I suppose," said Rollo, "that when a king marries, the lady that he marries does not become a queen."

"Yes," said Mr. George, "the rule does not seem to work both ways. A lady who marries a king is always called a queen; though, after all, she acquires no share of the royal power. She is a queen in name only. But let us hear what this man is explaining to the visitors about the paintings and the furniture."

So they advanced to the part of the room where the attendant was standing, with two or three ladies and gentlemen, who were looking at one of the old pictures that were hanging on the wall. It was a picture of Queen Mary when she was fifteen years old. The dress was very quaint and queer, and the picture seemed a good deal faded; but the face wore a very sweet and charming expression.

"I think she was a very pretty girl," whispered Waldron in Rollo's ear.

"She was in France at that time," said the attendant, "and the picture, if it is an original, must have been painted there, and she must have brought it with her to Scotland, on her return from that country. She brought a great deal with her on her return. There were several vessel loads of furniture, paintings, &c. The tapestry in the bedroom was brought. It was wrought at the Gobelins."

Mr. George went into the bedroom, to look at the tapestry. Two sides of the room were hung with it.

"It looks like a carpet hung on the walls," said Waldron.

"Yes," said Mr. George; "a richly embroidered carpet."

The figures on the tapestry consisted of groups of hors.e.m.e.n, elegantly equipped and caparisoned. The horses were prancing about in a very spirited manner. The whole work looked very dingy, and the colors were very much faded; but it was evident that it must have been very splendid in its day.

After looking at the tapestry, and at the various articles of quaint and queer old furniture in this room, the company followed the attendant into another apartment.

"This," said he, "is the room where Lord Darnley, Ruthven, and the rest, held their consultation and formed their plans for the murder of Rizzio; and _there_ is the door leading to the private stairway where they went up. You cannot go up that way now, but you will see where they came out above when you go up into Queen Mary's apartments."

"Let us go now," said Waldron.

"Well," said Mr. George, "and then we can come into these rooms again when we come down."

So Mr. George and the boys walked back, through Lord Darnley's rooms, to the place where they came in. Here they saw that the same broad flight of stone stairs, by which they had come up from the court below, continued to ascend to the upper stories. There was a painted inscription on a board there, too, saying, "To Queen Mary's apartments,"

with a hand pointing up the staircase. So they knew that that was the way they must go.

As they went up, both Rollo and Waldron asked Mr. George to explain to them something about the murder, so that they might know a little what they were going to see.

"Well," said Mr. George, "I will. Let us sit down here, and I will tell you as much as I can tell in five minutes. Really to understand the whole affair, you would have to read as much as you could read in a week. And I a.s.sure you it is an exceedingly interesting and entertaining story.

"Darnley, you know, was the queen's husband. Her first husband was the young Prince of France; but he died before Queen Mary came home. So that when she came home she was a widow; very young, and exceedingly beautiful. There is a very beautiful painting of her, I am told, in the castle."

"Let us go and see it," said Waldron.

"To-morrow," said Mr. George.

"After Queen Mary had been in Scotland some little time," continued Mr.

George, "she was married again to this Lord Darnley. He was an English prince. The whole story of her first becoming acquainted with Darnley, and how the marriage was brought about, is extremely interesting; but I have not time now to tell it to you.

"After they were married they lived together for a time very happily; but at length some causes of difficulty and dissension occurred between them. Darnley was not contented to be merely the queen's husband. He wanted, also, to be king."

"I don't blame him," said Waldron.

"I should have thought," said Rollo, "that Mary would have been willing that he should be king."

"Very likely she might have been willing herself," said Mr. George, "but her people were not willing. There were a great many powerful n.o.bles and chieftains in the kingdom, and about her court, and they took sides, one way and the other, and there was a great deal of trouble. It is a long story, and I can't tell you half of it, now. What made the matter worse was, that Darnley, finding he could not have every thing his own way, began to be very harsh and cruel in his treatment of Mary. This made Mary very unhappy, and caused her to live a great deal in retirement, with a few near and intimate friends, who treated her with kindness and sympathy.

"One of these was David Rizzio, the man who was murdered. He was one of the officers of the court. His office was private secretary. He was a great deal older than Mary, and it seems he was an excellent man for his office. He used to write for the queen when it was necessary, and perform other such duties; and as he was very gentle and kind in his disposition, and took a great interest in every thing that concerned the queen, Mary became, at last, quite attached to him, and considered him as one of her best friends. At last Lord Darnley and his party became very jealous of him. They thought that he had a great deal too much influence over the queen. It was as if he were the prime minister, they said, while they, the old n.o.bles of the realm, were all set aside, as if they were of no consequence at all. So they determined to kill him.

"They formed their plot in the room below, where we have just been. It was in the evening. Mary was at supper that night in a little room in the tower up above, where we are now going. There were two or three friends with her. The men went up the private stairway, and burst into the little supper room, and killed Rizzio on the spot."

"Let us go up and see the place," said Waldron.

So Mr. George rose, and followed by the boys, he led the way into Queen Mary's apartments.

CHAPTER XIV.

QUEEN MARY'S APARTMENTS.

Before we follow Mr. George and the boys into Queen Mary's apartments, I have one or two other explanations to make, in addition to the information which Mr. George communicated to the boys on the stairs.

These explanations relate to the situation of Mary's apartments in the palace. They were in a sort of wing, which forms the extreme left of the front of the palace. The wing is square. It projects to the front. At the two corners of it, in front, are two round towers, which are surmounted above by short spires. As there is a similar wing at the right hand end of the front, with similar towers at the corners, the facade of the building is marked with four towers and four spires. The left hand portion is represented in the engraving opposite.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE CORNER TOWER OF THE PALACE OF HOLYROOD.]

Queen Mary's rooms are in the third story, as seen in the engraving. The princ.i.p.al room is in the square part of the wing, between the two round towers. This was the bedroom. In the right hand tower, as seen in the engraving, is a small room, as large as the tower can contain, which was used by Mary as an oratory; that is, a little chapel for her private devotions. In the left hand tower was another small room, similar to the oratory, which Mary used as a private sitting room or boudoir. It is just large enough for a window and a fireplace, and for a very few persons to sit. It was in this little room that Mary was having supper, with two or three of her friends, when Darnley and his gang came up to murder Rizzio, who was one among them.

Besides Mary's bedroom, which was in the front part of the wing, between the two towers, there was another large room behind it, which also belonged to her. Darnley's apartments were very similar to the queen's, only they were in the story below. It was the custom in those days, as it is now, indeed, in high life, for the husband and wife to have separate ranges of apartments, with a private pa.s.sage connecting them.

In this case the private pa.s.sage leading from Darnley's apartments to Mary's was in the wall. It was a narrow stairway, leading up to Mary's bedroom, and the door where it came out was very near to the door leading to the little room in the tower where Mary and her friends were taking supper on the night of Rizzio's murder.

When Mr. George and the boys reached the top of the stairs, they entered a large room, which, they were told by an attendant who was there to receive them, was Mary's audience chamber. This was the room situated back of the bedroom. The room itself, and every thing which it contained, wore a very antique and venerable appearance. The furniture was dilapidated, and the coverings of it were worn and moth-eaten. Very ancient-looking pictures were hanging on the walls. There was a large fireplace, with an immense movable iron grate in it. The grate was almost entirely worn out. The attendant who showed these rooms said that it was the oldest grate in Scotland. Still, it was not so old as the time of Mary, for it was brought into Scotland, the attendant said, by Charles II., who was Mary's great grandson.

There was a window in a very deep recess in this room. It looked out upon a green park, on the side of the palace. A very ancient-looking table stood in this recess, which, the attendant said, was brought by Mary from France. The ceiling was carved and ornamented in a very curious manner.