Queen Mary's Jewels
Categories: DreamScary Books: The Book Of Dreams And Ghosts
: Andrew Lang
"I have had a strange dream about your ring" (a "medallion" of Anthony
and Cleopatra); "it is very valuable."
Major Buckley said it was worth 60 pounds, and put the ring into his
friend's hand.
"It belonged to royalty."
"In what country?"
"I see Mary, Queen of Scots. It was given to her by a man, a
foreigner, with other things from Italy. It came fr
not in the old setting. She wore it only once. The person who gave
it to her was a musician."
The seer then "saw" the donor's signature, "Rizzio". But Rizzio
spelled his name Riccio! The seer now copied on paper a writing which
in his trance he saw on vellum. The design here engraved (p. 32) is
only from a rough copy of the seer's original drawing, which was made
by Major Buckley.
[Picture of vellum as described in the text - images/rizzo.gif]
"Here" (pointing to the middle) "I see a diamond cross." The
smallest stone was above the size of one of four carats. "It" (the
cross) "was worn out of sight by Mary. The vellum has been shown in
the House of Lords." {31}
" . . . The ring was taken off Mary's finger by a man in anger and
jealousy: he threw it into the water. When he took it off, she was
being carried in a kind of bed with curtains" (a litter).
Just before Rizzio's murder Mary was enceinte, and might well be
carried in a litter, though she usually rode.
The seer then had a view of Sizzle's murder, which he had probably
read about.
Three weeks later, in another trance, the seer finished his design of
the vellum. The words
A
M
de la PART
probably stand for a Marie, de la part de--
The thistle heads and leaves in gold at the corners were a usual
decoration of the period; compare the ceiling of the room in Edinburgh
Castle where James VI. was born, four months after Rizzio's murder.
They also occur in documents. Dr. Gregory conjectures that so
valuable a present as a diamond cross may have been made not by
Rizzio, but through Rizzio by the Pope.
It did not seem good to the doctor to consult Mary's lists of jewels,
nor, if he had done so, would he have been any the wiser. In 1566,
just before the birth of James VI., Mary had an inventory drawn up,
and added the names of the persons to whom she bequeathed her
treasures in case she died in child-bed. But this inventory, hidden
among a mass of law-papers in the Record Office, was not discovered
till 1854, nine years after the vision of 1845, and three after its
publication by Dr. Gregory in 1851. Not till 1863 was the inventory
of 1566, discovered in 1854, published for the Bannatyne Club by Dr.
Joseph Robertson.
Turning to the inventory we read of a valuable present made by David
Rizzio to Mary, a tortoise of rubies, which she kept till her death,
for it appears in a list made after her execution at Fotheringay. The
murdered David Rizzio left a brother Joseph. Him the queen made her
secretary, and in her will of 1566 mentions him thus:--
"A Josef, pour porter a celui qui je luy ay dit, une emeraude emaille
de blanc.
"A Josef, pour porter a celui qui je luy ai dit, dont il ranvoir
quittance.
"Une bague garnye de vingt cinq diamens tant grands que petis."
Now the diamond cross seen by the young officer in 1845 was set with
diamonds great and small, and was, in his opinion, a gift from or
through Rizzio. "The queen wore it out of sight." Here in the
inventory we have a bague (which may be a cross) of diamonds small and
great, connected with a secret only known to Rizzio's brother and to
the queen. It is "to be carried to one whose name the queen has
spoken in her new secretary's ear" (Joseph's), "but dare not trust
herself to write". "It would be idle now to seek to pry into the
mystery which was thus anxiously guarded," says Dr. Robertson, editor
of the queen's inventories. The doctor knew nothing of the vision
which, perhaps, so nearly pried into the mystery. There is nothing
like proof here, but there is just a presumption that the diamonds
connected with Rizzio, and secretly worn by the queen, seen in the
vision of 1845, are possibly the diamonds which, had Mary died in
1566, were to be carried by Joseph Rizzio to a person whose name might
not safely be written. {35a}
We now take a dream which apparently reveals a real fact occurring at
a distance. It is translated from Brierre de Boismont's book, Des
Hallucinations {35b} (Paris, 1845). "There are," says the learned
author, "authentic dreams which have revealed an event occurring at
the moment, or later." These he explains by accidental coincidence,
and then gives the following anecdote, as within his own intimate
knowledge:--
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