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CHAP IX power and will to be revenged on them, being her 1565 subjects.'

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June From the Court Randolph went to Argyle and Randolph in Murray, who had ascertained meanwhile that there was Elizabeth's no time to lose; the Bishop of Dunblane had been sent courages the to the Pope; Mary Stuart had obtained money from noblemen to Flanders; she had again sent for Bothwell, and she meant immediate mischief. The two earls expressed their belief that the time was come to put to a remedy.' They saw their sovereign determined to overthrow religion received, and sore bent against those that desired the amity with England to be continued, which two points they were bound in conscience to maintain and defend.' They had resolved therefore to withstand such attempts with all their power, and to provide for their sovereign's estate better than she could at that time consider for herself.' They intended to do nothing which was not for their mistress's real advantage; Sir Nicholas Throgmorton had assured them of the Queen of England's 'godly and friendly offer to concur with and assist them;' the Queen of England's interest was as much concerned as their own; and they humbly desired the performance of her Majesty's promises; they did not ask for an English army; if her Majesty would give them three thousand pounds they could hold their followers together, and would undertake the rest for themselves; Lennox and Darnley could be seized and delivered into Berwick,' if her Majesty would receive them.

To these communications Randolph replied with renewed assurances that Elizabeth would send them whatever assistance they required. He gave them the warmest encouragement to persevere; and as to the father and son, whom they proposed to kidnap, the English

Government, he said, 'could not and would not refuse CHAP IX their own in what sort soever they came."

The Queen of Scots was not long in receiving intelligence of what the lords intended against her. She sent a message to her brother requesting that he would meet her at Perth. As he was mounting his horse a hint was given him that if he went he would not return alive, and that Darnley and Ritzio had formed a plan to kill him. He withdrew to his mother's castle at Lochleven, and published the occasion of his disobedience. Mary Stuart replied with a countercharge that the Earl of Murray had purposed to take her prisoner and carry off Darnley to England. Both stories were probably true: Murray's offer to Randolph is sufficient evidence against himself. Lord Darnley's conspiracy against the Earl was no more than legitimate retaliation. Civil war was fast approaching; and it is impossible to acquit Elizabeth of having done her best to foster it. Afraid to take an open part lest she should have an insurrection on her own hands at home, she was ready to employ to the uttermost the assistance of the Queen of Scots' own subjects, and she trusted to diplomacy or accident to extricate herself from the consequences.

On receiving Randolph's letter, which explained with sufficient clearness the intentions of the Protestant noblemen, she not only did not find fault with the engagements to which he had committed her, but she directed him under her own hand to assure them of her perfect satisfaction with the course which they were preparing to pursue. She could have entertained no sort of doubt that they would use violence; yet she did

1 Randolph to Cecil, July 2 and July 4.-COTTON MSS., CALIG, B. 10. Printed in KEITH,

1565 July

1565

July

CHAP IX not even conceal her approbation under ambiguous or uncertain phrases. She said that they should find her 'in all their just and honourable causes regard their state and continuance' if by malice or practice they were forced to any inconveniency they should find no lack in her; she desired merely that in carrying out their enterprise they would 'spend no more money than their security made necessary, nor less which might bring danger."

Measures of the General

The

As the collision drew near both parties prepared for Assembly. it by endeavouring to put themselves right with the country. No sooner was it generally known in Scotland that the Queen intended to marry a Catholic than the General Assembly met in haste at Edinburgh. extreme Protestants were able to appeal to the fulfilment of their predictions of evil when Mary Stuart was permitted the free exercise of her own religion. Like the children of Israel on their entrance into Canaan, they had made terms with wickedness: they had sown the wind of a carnal policy and were now reaping the whirlwind. A resolution was passed-to which Murray though he was present no longer raised his voice in opposition-that the sovereign was not exempt from obedience to the law of the land, that the mass should be put utterly away, and the reformed service take the place of it in the royal chapel.

Mary Stuart had been described by Randolph as so much changed that those who had known her when she was under Murray's and Maitland's tutelage were astonished at the alteration. Manner, words, features, all were different. In mind and body she was swollen and disfigured by the tumultuous working of her passions.

1 Elizabeth to Randolph, July 10. Printed in KEITH.

energy of

Mary

Stuart.

So perhaps she may have appeared in Randolph's eyes; CHAP IX and yet the change may have been more in Randolph's 1565 July power of insight than in the object at which he looked. Never certainly did she show herself cooler or more Skill and adroit than in her present emergency. She replied to the Assembly with returning from Perth to Edinburgh; and as a first step towards recovering their confidence she attended a Protestant sermon. To the resolution of the General Assembly she delayed her answer, but she issued circulars protesting that neither then nor at any past time had she entertained a thought of interfering with her subjects' religion; the toleration which she had requested for herself she desired only to extend to others; her utmost wish had been that her subjects might worship God freely in the form which each most approved.'

A Catholic sovereign sincerely pleading to a Protestant Assembly for liberty of conscience might have been a lesson to the bigotry of mankind; but Mary Stuart was not sincere; and could the Assembly have believed her they would have thought her French teaching was bearing fruits more deadly than Popery itself. The Protestant respected the Catholic as an honest worshipper of something, though it might be the devil. Liberty of conscience' was the crime of the Laodiceans, which hell and heaven alike rejected.

The attendance of Mary Stuart at sermon produced as little effect on the Congregation as Elizabeth's candles and crucifixes on the hatred of the English Papists. The elders of the Church dispersed. Argyle, Murray, and their friends withdrew to Stirling; and on the 18th of July despatched a messenger to Elizabeth with a bond in which they pledged themselves to resist all attempts

ELIZ. II.

1 Circular by the Queen, July 17.

N

CHAP IX either to restore the Catholic ritual or to dissolve the 1565 English alliance. From their own fessed to hope for nothing but evil.

July

sovereign they pro

They looked to the protectress most spe

Queen of England as under God
cial of the professors of religion;' and they thanked her
warmly for the promises of help, on which it was evident
that they entirely relied.'

They relied on those promises; and to have doubted them would have been nothing less than a studied insult. The English ambassador was ordered a second time, and more imperiously, to command Lennox and Darnley to go back to England; while avowedly by the direct instructions of his mistress he laid her thanks and wishes before the lords in a formal and written address.2

Lords as

sistance

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RANDOLPH TO THE LORDS OF SCOTLAND,3

July, 1565.

Randolph Right Honourable and my very good Lords,-It again promises the is not out of your remembrance that Sir Nicholas Throgmorton being at Stirling ambassador for the from Eng- Queen's Majesty my mistress to the Queen's Majesty your sovereign, it was declared at good length both to her Grace's self and also to you of her honourable Council, what misliking the Queen my mistress hath that the Lord Darnley should join marriage with the Queen your sovereign, for divers and weighty reasons; of

1Understanding by your Highness's ambassador, Sir N. Throgmorton, and also by the information of your Majesty's servant, Master Randolph, the good and gracious mind which your Majesty with continuance beareth to the maintenance of the Gospel and us that profess the same,' &c.-The Lords in Stir

ling to the Queen of England, July 18. KEITH, vol. ii. p. 329.

2 It is necessary, at the risk of being tedious, to dwell on these particulars of Elizabeth's conduct. Each separate promise was as a nail which left a rent in her reputation when she endeavoured to free herself.

3 LANSDOWNE MSS. 8.

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