long as Bothwell was at large and unpunished, it could not be spoken of, and they would not merchandise for the bear's skin before they had caught the bear.' The Queen's liberty would depend upon her own behaviour: 'if she digested the punishment of the murderer,' without betraying any wrathful or revengeful mind,' and if Elizabeth would seek the quiet of Scotland, and not endeavour to trouble him 'by nourishing contrary factions,' the Lords would be more compliant than for the present they were disposed to be. Meanwhile her life and her reputation were for the present safe. The publication of the letters would, at any moment, serve as his complete defence against public censure; he said that he would forbear from using this advantage as long as he was let alone; but Murray, or Maitland for him, warned the English ambassador that if Elizabeth 'made war upon them,' 'they would not lose their lives, have their lands forfeited, and be reputed rebels throughout the world, when they had the means in their hands to justify themselves, however sorry they might be for it.'2

The gauntlet was thus thrown down to Elizabeth. If she hesitated to take it up, and to send an army by way of reply into Scotland, it was from no want of will to punish the audacious subjects who had dared to depose their sovereign. So angry was she that when Cecil and his friends remonstrated with her, she reproached them with themselves meditating disloyalty;

1 Throgmorton to Cecil, September 1: MSS. Scotland.

2 Throgmorton to Elizabeth, August 22: KEITH.

and those Ministers who had laboured for years in drawing Scotland and England together, and smoothing the way for a more intimate union, saw their exertions shipwrecked against the Queen's theories of the sacredness of princes.1 To avoid forcing Murray upon France, Cecil ventured to hint that she should receive a minister at the Court from him. She told Cecil he was a fool for suggesting anything' so prejudicial to the Queen,' and she sought a more congenial adviser in de Silva; who, however well he thought of Murray, and whatever ill he knew of the Queen of Scots, was too glad of an opportunity to encourage a quarrel among Protestants.

'The Queen,' de Silva wrote to Philip, 'assured me that she not only meant to set the Queen of Scots at liberty, but was determined to use all her power to punish the Confederate Lords. She said she would send

1 'The Queen's Majesty is in con- | after my opinions declared, obey her tinual offence against all these Lords, Majesty to do that which is my office. and we here cannot move her Ma- Very sorry I am to behold the likejesty to mitigate it do what we can, lihood of the loss of the fruit of or to move her to hide it more than seven or eight years' negotiations she doth. But surely the more we with Scotland, and now to suffer a deal in it the more danger some of divorce between this realm and that, us find in her indignation; and where neither of the countries shall specially in conceiving that we are take either good or pleasure thereof. not dutifully minded to her Majesty If religion may remain, I trust the as our Sovereign; and where such divorce shall be rather in words and thorns be, it is no quiet treading. terms than in hearts; and of this For howsoever her Majesty shall in I have no great doubt.'-Cecil to this cause (touching her so nearly as Throgmorton, August 20: Conway it seemeth she conceiveth, though I | MSS. trust without any just cause) be 2 Noting in me no small folly.' offended with my arguments, I will, |—Ibid.

some one to the King of France to tell him what she was going to do, and to express her hope that other Princes would stand by her; especially, she told me, she depended upon our Sovereign, the greatest of them all, meaning by these words your Majesty. Your Majesty, she was confident, would not allow the French to interfere in defence of the rebels.

'Every one,' I replied,' would approve of such conduct on the part of her Highness in a just and honest cause. Your Majesty, I was quite sure, could be always relied upon by your friends, and above all by her Highness, to whom your Majesty had borne such peculiar goodwill.

'She desired me not to repeat what she had said, for there were persons about her who for their own purpose did not agree with her views in the matter, and she did not wish them to know what she was going to do. She had spoken to me because she counted on my discretion, and because in all her communications with me, she had found me the truest friend that she sessed.'1

pos

As a step towards the intervention which she meditated, she had again made secret advances to the Hamiltons. She was aware of the proposals with which they had approached the Confederate Lords. She was aware that they were Catholic and French, and that in assisting them she was feeding the enemies of all which her own Government had most carefully laboured to

encourage. Yet if they would form a party for the Queen and against Murray, other drawbacks were trivial in comparison.

They, at all events, had no objection to receive Elizabeth's money. Maitland said they would take it and laugh at her. Throgmorton thought that anyhow it would be utterly thrown away. But the Hamiltons intimated as much readiness to meet her wishes as

They selected Lord

would ensure her supplying them. Herries, a smooth-tongued plausible person, to make arrangements either with Elizabeth in person, if she would allow him to come to London, or with any person whom she would depute to meet him on the Borders.2

1 'As to the Hamiltons and their | to bear all the world in hand. Here faction,' 'their conditions be such, among his own countrymen he is their behaviour so inordinate, the noted to be the most cautelous man most of them so unable, their living of his nation. It may like you to so vicious, their fidelity so fickle, remember that he suffered his own their party so weak, as I count it hostages, the hostages of the Lairds lost whatsoever is bestowed upon of Lochinvar and Garlies, his next them.'-Throgmorton to Cecil, Au- neighbours, to be hanged for progust 20 MSS. Scotland. mises broken by him. Thus much I speak because he is the likeliest and the most dangerous man to enchant you.'-Throgmorton to Cecil, August 20,

2 The Archbishop of St Andrews, the Lords Fleming, Arbroath, and Boyd to Throgmorton, August 19: MSS. Scotland.

As the name of Lord Herries will occur frequently in the following pages, the following account of him will not be out of place :

"The Lord Herries is the cunning horseleech and the wisest of the whole faction, but, as the Queen of Scotland saith, there is no one can be sure of him. He taketh pleasure

VOL. VIII.

She was prudent enough to refrain from receiving him herself, and she commissioned Lord Scrope, the governor of Carlisle, who was more than half a Catholic, to represent her. She sent Herries 3000 marks,1 and, both through Scrope and Throgmorton, she gave the Hamiltons to understand that she allowed their proceedings' in resisting Murray, and would uphold them to the utmost of her power.

Mary Stuart's misdoings, however, were too recent to allow a party as yet to form itself which could openly take the field in her cause. Elizabeth would have lighted up a civil war if she could. The Hamiltons, Argyle, Huntly, Fleming, and several other noblemen, September. met at Glasgow at the beginning of September, to consider what could be done; but 'the more they disputed the greater difficulty they found.' Argyle was offered the lieutenancy of the federation, but he refused, and, with Gawen Hamilton and Lord Boyd, 'made his peace' with Murray. Herries told Scrope, that he could not be sure of four persons besides himself to stand firmly on the Queen's side.' 3 The opportunity was gone, he said, or was not yet come. On returning from the Borders he followed the example of his friends, and on the 15th of September, Murray was able to tell the English ambassador, not without some irony,' that the noblemen who had stood out had all at last submitted; so that he praised God there appeared no break in the whole wall.'

1 Sir James Melville to Throgmorton, September 10: MSS. Scotland.

2 Ibid.

Scrope to Cecil, September 12: Border MSS.