best, but it would require Murray's help, and Murray, for two reasons, might now decline to give it.

She would disown the letters, and in return accuse his friends of manifest consent to the murder hardly to be denied. The King was young and delicate, and might possibly die. If the Queen were judicially dishonoured, the Hamiltons would succeed to the crown of Scotland, and in right of blood would claim the immediate government. Murray would not part with the Regency, and Hamilton would not be second to Murray.

'The Hamiltons desired that the proceedings should be dropped, that the Queen should be restored in name, but remain in England; while Scotland, in respect of her misgovernment, should be ordered by a council of the nobility, to be named by the Queen of England.'

Murray wished that she should repeat her abdication and withdraw her complaints against him and his friends. He would then forbear to accuse her further, destroy the casket, and hold out hopes to her of eventual restoration, in proof of his forgetting her displeasure.'

Between these two views the Scots were at present divided; but the danger most to be dreaded was 'that both sides might eventually pack together, so as, under colour of composition, to unwrap their mistress of their present slander, and purge her openly. Within short time they would demand of the Queen her delivery home to govern her own realm; she also making like request-and the Queen, having no just cause to de

tain her, would have her for a mortal enemy ever after.'

91

To this point Elizabeth had brought it: she had spun refinement within refinement, artifice within artifice. The Queen of Scots was to be accused and not accused, acquitted and not acquitted, restored and not restored. So many objections could be urged against any one course, that she had thought to neutralize them by adopting all at once, and the web which she had wrought out with so much pains was about to be rent in pieces. When the Queen of Scots came to England, it would have been easy to require Murray to produce the proofs of the crimes with which he charged her she might have submitted the letters and depositions to the twelve judges and the English Parliament; and then, publishing the truth without concealment or hesitation, have dared the Catholic Powers to interfere in such a cause. But theories of the rights of sovereigns, and the intellectual enjoyment of handling a difficult subject artificially, forbade so simple a proceeding.

When it came to the point, she could not make up her mind, after all, whether she wished Murray to go on with his charges or not. His four questions, when they were brought to London, seemed to force her to some positive conclusion, but she struggled against the necessity of decision. She said at first that they needed no particular answer;' the Earl of Murray should be contented to leave the matter to herself and

1 Sussex to Cecil, October 22: Illustrations of English History, vol. i. p. 458.

her own judgment; 'on hearing the cause she would do or cause to be done what should be agreeable to the honour of Almighty God, the maintenance of the innocent, and the reproof of the guilty.'

Such phrases would have answered no good purpose: she would have satisfied Murray that no good was to be expected from her, and have driven him faster than ever into a compromise. But suddenly, while she was hesitating what answer to give, a whisper ran round the Court that the Duke of Norfolk was to marry the Queen of Scots. What it meant, with which party it originated—the how, the when, the why of it— was all obscure to her; but it was a sharp revelation to Elizabeth that others could scheme beside herself. The dangers which she had feared from the Queen of Scots' presence in England had started out of the ground at her very feet,1 and at once on the instant she cancelled the York Commission, resumed the cause into her own hands, and summoned all parties to London, where the conclusion could be heard in her presence. Sussex might remain where he was; Norfolk might use the opportunity to survey the fortifications at Berwick; Sadler, Maitland, and Herries were ordered back to her immediately, that 'she might be better informed in certain matters.' The Queen of Scots' Commissioners, she was particularly anxious, should not be alarmed. She

1 'Y porque se levantó un rumor | y hizó venir aqui los diputados.'— que el Duque de Norfolk, que es Relacion del Negocio de la Sereviudo, queria casarse con la Reyna de nissima Reyna de Escocia: MSS. Escocia, la Reyna de Inglaterra mandó Simancas. luego deshacer aquel ajuntamiento,

said that she still desired only to discover the easiest means for her sister's restitution.1

Evidently Elizabeth's first impulse was to rid herself as rapidly as possible of a guest who promised to be so troublesome. If before she had been three months in the country she had entangled the premier nobleman of England in her meshes, what might not be expected in the future? Among those to whom the state of things was known, the expectation at this moment was of some rapid compromise, by which the Queen of Scots would be immediately replaced. The great object would be to separate her from the Catholic party. She had offered to consent to the establishment in Scotland of the Anglican religion; this or something like it would be probably the chief condition insisted on; and unless the Great Powers showed more interest in her than they had hitherto displayed, her zeal for Catholicism, it was feared, would give way under the trial.2 France cared

1 The Queen to Norfolk, Sussex, | reported in Spanish by Alava to and Sadler, October 16: MSS. Philip, are these:-'Señor EmbaQUEEN OF SCOTS. jador yo voy á residir en la Corte de Inglaterra y á servir á la Reyna vuestra ama; y para que sus cosas vayan bien á la fee, debeis de aconsejarla que no este tan dura como hasta aqui, sino que se dexe llevar al sabor de sus vassallos, porque desta manera ella sera Reyna obedecida y querida. En fin dice el obispo que claramente le dixó que hiciese officio para que se acommodase en lo de la religion, y en todo lo demas con sus vassallos.'-Alava to Philip, October 30: TEULET, vol. ii.

2 M. de la Forest, the French ambassador in England, was superseded at this crisis by La Mothe Fénelon, whose despatches throw so much light on the history of the coming | years. The Archbishop of Glasgow, Mary's Minister in Paris, had a conversation with him before he started, and was horrified by hearing La Mothe say that he intended to advise the Queen of Scots to give way about religion. The words which La Mothe Fénelon used, as

only for the alliance with Scotland, and was ready to let religion take its chance. Spain had been so far entirely silent towards her, and accident had led her to believe that she was more neglected than she actually was. A passionate letter, which she had written to the Spanish Minister in London, had been left a month unanswered. The key of her cipher had been lost, and the letter could not be read. The Archbishop of Glasgow at Paris told Don Francis de Alava that she had been constant so far, in the hope that the King of Spain would take her part. If Spain failed her she would yield, and the Catholics of England and Scotland would then cease to struggle.

Mary Stuart so far had been without interest to Philip. He knew her to be a bad woman; she was connected closely with France, and he had no political inducement to meddle for other reasons in her favour. If France however shook her off or became indifferent, if the English Catholics were willing to overlook her delinquencies, and if she and they would commit themselves to Spanish direction, his scruples might possibly be overcome. Uncertain, yet hoping that it might be so, Alava wrote to Cayas, Philip's secretary, to plead for her.

"The Queen of Scots,' he allowed, 'had made a few mistakes in her life,' not to use a harder word for them.1 'It would require some skill to bring his Majesty to hold out a hand to her; but he was a great prince; and

1 'Aunque aya andado estrope- | greso de su vida.'-Alava to Cayas: çando en algunas cosas en el pro- TEULET, vol. v.