The Queen of Scots would hold out as long as one foot of hope was left to her. She was persuaded that God had given Elizabeth such temperature of affection that she would never disgrace her, however she should refuse to yield to conformity;' and Knowles had the courage to repeat to the Queen, that although her Majesty's judgment must needs be ruled by such affections and passions of her mind as happened to have dominion over her,' in her actions she would do wisely to accept 'the resolutions digested by the deliberate consultation of her most faithful councillors.' 1

Unfortunately, at the moment when it was necessary to act, and when her constitutional irresolution made a decision, as usual, so difficult, Elizabeth's 'passions and affections' were irritated by a ridiculous accident. She was on the point of yielding to Cecil, and of assuming an attitude more becoming in a Protestant sovereign,a part of this bolder policy would have been an open declaration in favour of the Earl of Murray,-when a

1 Knowles to Elizabeth, January | matter stoutly and roundly, I think 1: Burghley Papers, vol. i.; and again to Cecil, December 31, Knowles writes:

"This Queen does not seem to my Lord Scrope nor me greatly to mislike our advice for her yielding in this matter, but she depends much upon the coming of the Bishop of Ross, and she mistrusts to be allured and not to be plainly dealt withal for the saving of her honour. Whatever the Bishop of Ross shall persuade her, if her Majesty would handle this

verily she would yield upon hope, or rather upon assurance, that her Majesty would save her honour and use her favourably. But if the Bishop of Ross and the rest of her commissioners shall find her Majesty to be tender, and shrinking either to deal straightly with her until she do yield, or to maintain my Lord of Murray's government throughly, then surely I look not for her yield. ing.'-Cotton. MSS. CALIG, C. 1.

But

Protestant bishop used the opportunity to offend her on the point where she was most sensitive. Marriage, under all forms, was disagreeable to her; the marriage of the clergy was detestable; the marriage, and especially the re-marriage, of her prelates approached incest. Dr Coxe, the Bishop of Ely, a grey-haired old gentleman -one of the patriarchs of the Reformation-had been left a widower, and at his age he might, with no great difficulty, have remained in that condition. it could not be. He explained his difficulty to Cecil with ludicrous gravity. He said that he wished to spend the remainder of his life without offence to God. The Queen's displeasure was death to him, but the displeasure of the Almighty was more to be dreaded. The Almighty had left him without one special gift, and placed him in the number of those who could not receive the saying of Christ. He was between Scylla and Charybdis; but it was more dreadful to fall into the hands of the living God;' and a second wife was a necessity.1

The incontinence of the Bishop came opportunely to the help of the Queen of Scots. Either this flagrant illustration of the tendencies of Protestantism, or the Spanish difficulty, or her own incurable vacillation, destroyed at the last moment Elizabeth's almost completed purpose. She sent down the Bishop of Ross to Bolton, apparently to confirm the message sent through

1 'Me etiam senem suo dono | destituit, et in illorum me vult esse numero qui non capiunt verbum hoc

ut ait Christus Dominus Noster.' The Bishop of Ely to Cecil, December 29: Domestic MSS.

Sir Francis Knowles; but at her parting interview she told him pointedly that, 'come what would, his mistress should be a Queen still;' and 'by speech, gesture, or countenance' she made him understand that he need not be alarmed-she meant to keep her promises and 'deal favourably' with the Queen of Scots after all. Satisfied now that all was well, the Bishop flew to Bolton. He carried with him the happy news that the council was in confusion, that England was on the eve of a war with Spain, and that a Catholic revolution was immediately impending. He had seen the Spanish ambassador; he carried letters or brought messages from the Earl of Northumberland; and at once from the edge of despondency Mary Stuart sprang back into energy and life. She was again the sovereign princess, with all her rights and all her pride. She sent word, as has been seen, to Don Guerau that with Philip's help she would in three months be Queen of England. She saw herself in imagination pass with a spring from her prison to the first place in Catholic Europe, and protected by Elizabeth from the only blow which she feared.

She wrote a letter to her friends in Scotland, to lash them into fury preparatory to the expected insurrection. She described herself as betrayed, tricked, oppressed. The Earl of Murray had compounded with Elizabeth to betray the Prince and admit English garrisons into Edinburgh and Stirling. Scotland was to be held in fee of the English Crown, and its ancient independence destroyed. It was said that the Prince was to be

Elizabeth's successor; but Cecil and Murray had concluded a private arrangement in favour of the children of the Earl of Hertford. Scotland was betrayed-betrayed foully by Murray-' to the ancient and natural enemies of the realm.' They had begun with attempting to persuade her to renounce her crown,' but God and good Scotch hearts would provide a remedy. In the spring they would have help of their friends.’ Meanwhile, they must proclaim Murray's treason in every corner of the land, and hold the rebels in check till foreign aid should come.1

Every word of this letter was false; but the Queen of Scots knew that it would answer its immediate purpose, in stirring Scottish pride; and at the same time, and to prevent further trouble with the casket letters, a party of Yorkshire Catholics, the Nortons of Norton Conyers and others, undertook to intercept Murray on his return to the Border, kill him, and destroy the papers.

Having thus fired Mary Stuart with new hopes, the Bishop went again to London to concert further measures with his friends among the Peers. His first step was characteristic and curious. He was aware that Elizabeth was haunted by the spectre of a possible league between France and Spain and the Papacy. Information calling itself authentic had come late in

1 The Queen of Scots to the | about Northallerton, by the Nortons, Abbot of Arbroath, January — Markinfield, and others.'-Confession of the Bishop of Ross: MURDIN, p. 52.

2 Murray was to have been murdered on his way back to Scotland from Hampton Court, to be done

1

December, from Paris, that both France and Spain had within the realm a practice for the alteration of religion and the advancement of the Queen of Scots to the crown;' and Walsingham, commenting upon it to Cecil, could but say that in the divisions reigning in England there was less danger in fearing too much than too little, and that there was nothing more dangerous than security.' At once, while his mistress was inventing a lie of one sort, the Bishop of Ross composed another, to work on Elizabeth's fears, to earn her gratitude, and to throw her off her guard by his seeming frankness. He addressed himself to Lord Arundel as the member of the council through whom it would be most easy to approach her. He said that a secret had been revealed. to him, which his affection for Elizabeth forbade him to conceal. He could not be silent when he saw danger approaching her. The King of Spain had directed the Duke of Alva and Don Guerauto treat and conclude with the Queen of Scots for her marriage in three several ways.' The King of Spain offered her either the Archduke Charles or Don John of Austria, or, if she preferred it, himself. On her acceptance of any one of these suitors, he was ready with the whole force of Spain to replace her on her own throne, and to maintain whatever interest she possessed in the throne of England. The Duke of Alva had sent an agent to England to see and consult her. The Bishop said that he had himself seen this man, learned his errand, and undertaken to lay the

1 Walsingham to Cecil, December 20: Domestic MSS.