and his mother's ravisher being clad with the principal strength of the realm, and garnished with a guard of mercenaries.

To deliver their sovereign from ignominy, to preserve the Prince, and to see justice ministered, they had taken arms; and they bound themselves never to leave their enterprise till the King's murderers had been executed, the wicked marriage dissolved, their sovereign released from the ruffian with whom she had connected herself, and the Prince placed in safety.

"The which to do and faithfully perform,' they then and there bound themselves, 'as they would answer to Almighty God upon their honour, truth, and fidelity— as they were noblemen and loved the honour of their native country;-wherein if they failed in any point they were content to sustain the spot of perjury, infamy, and perpetual untruth, and to be accounted culpable of the above-named crimes, and enemies and betrayers of their native country for ever.'1

1 Band of the Lords, June 16: Printed in KEITH.

185

CHAPTER XLIX.

LOCHLEVEN CASTLE.

HE ex-Queen of France, the sister-in-law of the King, the niece of the Cardinal of Lorraine, might naturally have looked for support to the country which had so long been her home. The Queen of England might have been expected to regard her misfortunes with indifference if not with satisfaction. Whatever might have been their personal feelings, both Charles and Catherine on one side, and Elizabeth on the other, were determined in the course which they pursued by public considerations alone. From France Mary Stuart found the most settled disregard; from Elizabeth, immediate and active friendliness.

As soon as it was known in Paris that the Lords had taken arms against the Queen, the first thought, as du Croq anticipated, was of the effect which the insurrection might produce, or of the use to which it might be turned, in renewing the old relations between France and Scotland. The Queen's cause, even before her capture at Carberry had been heard of, was obviously

regarded as hopeless. Catherine de Medici was only afraid that Elizabeth would use the opportunity to weave a new strand in the Anglo-Scotch Alliance, and determined to be beforehand with her. Without waiting to see how far her alarms would be verified, she sent for the Earl of Murray, who was then in Paris, to persuade or bribe him into consenting that the Prince should be made over to her; while M. de Villeroy was despatched to Scotland to come to an understanding with the Confederate Lords. The Queen-mother explained her views to de Villeroy himself with the utmost distinctness, and she left him free to take such measures in connection with du Croq as should seem most expedient upon the spot.

'She was very sorry for the Queen of Scots,' Catherine said, 'and would gladly have been of use to her had it been possible; but the interests of France were first to be thought of. The Queen of Scots was herself the cause of all her misfortunes, and, as God was just, it was likely enough that the Lords would bring the enterprise which they had taken in hand to some result which the world would not be able to find severe fault with.1 The English, in pursuit of their own purposes, would undoubtedly support them, if they were not already encouraging them underhand. It was essential to supersede the English: it was essential to France to preserve

1 'Et qu'il pourroit estre, comme | improuvé de tout le monde.'-MéDieu est juste, que leurdict entre-moire pour M. le Villeroy: TEULET, prise viendroit a quelque effect dont vol. ii.

le fondement ne seroit pas blasmé ne

the attachment of the Scotch people; and that attachment could not and would not be preserved if the Lords supposed that France intended to interfere with them. The Lords must be assured that the Most Christian King would stand by them in promoting anything which would be to the advantage of the realm; the King wished well to the Queen, but he did not mean to thwart them in her behalf when they were but doing what was reasonable and just. He hoped only that without violating these principles, some means might be found of reconciling his sister-in-law with her subjects."1

In the commission of de Villeroy Catherine thus accepted the exact position of the Confederate Lords themselves. The most unprincipled woman in Europe, except perhaps the Queen of Scots herself, confessed to a consciousness that in certain cases God insisted that justice should be done, that it was useless to fight against him, and that it was therefore most prudent to take the same side of the question.

Elizabeth saw differently both her interests and her obligations. Elizabeth, though she had given many provocations to the Catholic Powers, had as yet but little reason to complain of their conduct to herself. Her ministers, acting in her name and not without her sanction, had supported the Huguenots in France with arms and money, and had fomented the growing disquiet in the Low Countries; but the Protestant propagandism of Cecil had always been personally distasteful to half the

1 Mémoire pour M. le Villeroy: TEULET, vol. ii.

council, and in reluctantly acquiescing in his policy the Queen had defended herself behind political reasons. which had a real existence, and which both France and Spain had not refused to recognize. The retaliatory schemes for a Catholic insurrection in England and Ireland had been so far uniformly discountenanced by Philip II. He had arrested the anathemas of successive Popes at the moment when they were about to be delivered; and Elizabeth, whose conceptions of the royal prerogative strengthened as she grew older, believed it necessary to her own security, as unquestionably it harmonized with her own feelings, to practise a corresponding forbearance.

Her desertion of the Earl of Murray at the time of the Darnley marriage had not been wholly cowardice. The insurrection had been encouraged by Cecil and Bedford against her own judgment. It failed for want of the support which, at the last moment, she refused to give, and in disowning Murray she had but asserted in public what from the first had been her private opinion.

In entire opposition to those who would July. have persuaded her now to retrace her steps, and to use the present opportunity for reviving her influence in Scotland, she chose a course which Catherine de Medici would herself have dictated, had she been asked in what way Elizabeth could most effectually play into her hands. On first hearing that the Lords were about to take arms, she had expressed some kind of hesitating approval. Their movements were avowedly directed rather against Bothwell than the Queen; and for