Mary Stuart | Page 9

drawing
their swords, crying, "Cordon, Cordon!" pursued the fugitives, and
believed they had already gained the battle, when they suddenly ran
right against the main body of Murray's army, which remained
motionless as a rampart of iron, and which, with its long lances, had the
advantage of its adversaries, who were armed only with their claymores.
It was then the turn of the Cordons to draw back, seeing which, the
northern clans rallied and returned to the fight, each soldier having a
sprig of heather in his cap that his comrades might recognise him. This
unexpected movement determined the day: the Highlanders ran down
the hillside like a torrent, dragging along with them everyone who
could have wished to oppose their passage. Then Murray seeing that
the moment had come for changing the defeat into a rout, charged with
his entire cavalry: Huntly, who was very stout and very heavily armed,
fell and was crushed beneath the horses' feet; John Cordon, taken
prisoner in his flight, was executed at Aberdeen three days afterwards;
finally, his brother, too young to undergo the same fate at this time, was

shut up in a dungeon and executed later, the day he reached the age of
sixteen.
Mary had been present at the battle, and the calm and courage she
displayed had made a lively impression on her wild defenders, who all
along the road had heard her say that she would have liked to be a man,
to pass her days on horseback, her nights under a tent, to wear a coat of
mail, a helmet, a buckler, and at her side a broadsword.
Mary made her entry into Edinburgh amid general enthusiasm; for this
expedition against the Earl of Huntly, who was a Catholic, had been
very popular among the inhabitants, who had no very clear idea of the
real motives which had caused her to undertake it: They were of the
Reformed faith, the earl was a papist, there was an enemy the less; that
is all they thought about. Now, therefore; the Scotch, amid their
acclamations, whether viva voce or by written demands, expressed the
wish that their queen, who was without issue by Francis II, should
re-marry: Mary agreed to this, and, yielding to the prudent advice of
those about her, she decided to consult upon this marriage Elizabeth,
whose heir she was, in her title of granddaughter of Henry VII, in the
event of the Queen of England's dying without posterity. Unfortunately,
she had not always acted with like circumspection; for at the death of
Mary Tudor, known as Bloody. Mary, she had laid claim to the throne
of Henry VIII, and, relying on the illegitimacy of Elizabeth's birth, had
with the dauphin assumed sovereignty over Scotland, England, and
Ireland, and had had coins struck with this new title, and plate engraved
with these new armorial bearings.
Elizabeth was nine years older than Mary--that is to say, that at this
time she had not yet attained her thirtieth year; she was not merely her
rival as queen, then, but as woman. As regards education, she could
sustain comparison with advantage; for if she had less charm of mind,
she had more solidity of judgment: versed in politics, philosophy,
history; rhetoric, poetry and music, besides English, her maternal
tongue, she spoke and wrote to perfection Greek, Latin, French, Italian
and Spanish; but while Elizabeth excelled Mary on this point, in her
turn Mary was more beautiful, and above all more attractive, than her

rival. Elizabeth had, it is true, a majestic and agreeable appearance,
bright quick eyes, a dazzlingly white complexion; but she had red hair,
a large foot,--[Elizabeth bestowed a pair of her shoes on the University
of Oxford; their size would point to their being those of a man of
average stature.]--and a powerful hand, while Mary, on the contrary,
with her beautiful ashy- fair hair,--[Several historians assert that Mary
Stuart had black hair; but Brantome, who had seen it, since, as we have
said, he accompanied her to Scotland, affirms that it was fair. And, so
saying, he (the executioner) took off her headdress, in a contemptuous
manner, to display her hair already white, that while alive, however,
she feared not to show, nor yet to twist and frizz as in the days when it
was so beautiful and so fair.]--her noble open forehead, eyebrows
which could be only blamed for being so regularly arched that they
looked as if drawn by a pencil, eyes continually beaming with the
witchery of fire, a nose of perfect Grecian outline, a mouth so ruby red
and gracious that it seemed that, as a flower opens but to let its perfume
escape, so it could not open but to give passage to gentle words, with a
neck white and graceful as