November CHAP IX the Queen of England would reconsider herself he would 1565 stick to the English cause and fight for it with lands and life; but he demanded an answer within ten days. If she persisted he would make terms with his own sovereign.' The ten days passed and no answer came. Resentment Argyle withdrew the check which through the Scots of of Argyle. the Isles he had held over Shan O'Neil, and Ireland of the Earl 1 blazed into fury and madness; while Argyle himself from that day forward till Mary Stuart's last hopes were scattered at Langside, became the enemy of all which till that hour he had most loved and fought for. Nor was Argyle alone in his anger. Sir James Melville saw the opportunity and urged on his mistress a politic generosity. From the day of her return from France he showed her that she had laboured without effect to sever her nobility from England. The Queen of England had now done for her what for herself she could not do; and if she would withdraw her prosecutions, pardon Murray, pardon Chatelherault, pardon Kirkaldy and Glencairn, she might command their devotion for ever." Melville found an ally where he could have least looked for it to repeat the same advice. Sir Nicholas Throgmorton had for the last six years been at the heart of every Protestant conspiracy in Europe. He it was of whose experienced skill Elizabeth had availed herself to light the Scotch insurrection. His whole nature revolted against the paltry deception of which he had been made the instrument; and now throwing himself passionately into the interests of the Queen of Scots he advised the lords 'to sue for pardon at their own Queen's hands, and engage never to offend her again for the satisfaction of any prince alive;' while 1 Randolph to Cecil, November 19. 2 MELVILLE's Memoirs. more daringly and dangerously he addressed Mary CHAP IX Stuart herself. 1565 November Throgmor to Mary Stuart. 'Your Majesty,' he said, ' has in England many friends Sir Nicholas who favour your title for divers respects; some for con- ton writes science thinking you have the right; some from personal regard; some for religion; some for faction; some for the ill-will they bear to Lady Catherine your competitor. Your friends and enemies alike desire to see the succession settled. Parliament must meet next year at latest; and it must be your business meanwhile to assure yourself of the votes of the majority, which, if you will, you can obtain. You have done wisely in marrying an Englishman; we do not love strangers. Make no foreign alliance till you have seen what we can do for you. Keep Keep on good terms with France and Spain, but do not draw too close to them. Go on moderately in religion as you have hitherto done, and you will find Catholics as well as Protestants on your side. Show clemency to the banished lords. You will thus win many hearts in England. Be careful, be generous, and you will command us all. I do not write as "a fetch to induce you to take the lords back; it is thought expedient for your service by many who have no favour to them, and are different from them in religion. The Earl of Murray has offended you, it is true; but the Protestants persuade themselves that his chief fault in your eyes is his religion, and on that ground they take his side. Pardon him, restore him to favour, and win by doing so all Protestant hearts. The lords will in no wise, if they can eschew it, be again in the Queen of England's debt, neither by obtaining of any favour at your hand by her intervention, nor yet for any support in time of their banishment. Allow them their charges ELIZ. II. ૧ CHAP IX out of their own lands, and the greater part even of the 1565 English bishops will declare for you." November Never had Elizabeth been in greater danger; and the worst features of the peril were the creations of her own untruths. Without a fuller knowledge of the strength and temper of the English Catholics than the surviving evidence reveals, her conduct cannot be judged with entire fairness. Undoubtedly the utmost caution was necessary to avoid giving the Spaniards a pretext for interference; and it is due to her to admit that her own unwillingness to act openly on the side of the northern lords had been endorsed by that of Cecil. Yet she had been driven into a position from which, had Mary Stuart understood how to use her advantage, she would scarcely have been able to extricate herself. If the Queen of Scots had relied on her own judgment she would probably have accepted the advice of Melville and Throgmorton and her other English friends; she would have declared an amnesty, and would have rallied all parties except the extreme Calvinist fanatics to her side. But such a policy would have involved an indefinite prolongation of the yoke which she had already found intolerable; she must have concealed or suspended her intention of making a religious revolution, and she must have continued to act with a forbearance towards the Protestants which her passionate temper Injurious found more and more difficulty in maintaining. The influence of counsels of David Ritzio were worth an army to English Mary liberty: she had surrendered herself entirely and exclusively to Ritzio's guidance; and when Melville attempted to move the dark and dangerous Italian 'he evidenced a disdain of danger, and despised counsel.' Ritzio-the Ritzio over Stuart. 1 Letter from Sir N. Throgmorton to the Queen of Scots.-Printed by Sir James Melville; abridged. minion of the Pope'-preferred the more direct and open CHAP IX road of violence and conquest, which he believed, in his 1565 ignorance of the people amongst whom he was working, November to be equally safe for his mistress, while it promised better for other objects which he had in view for himself. Already every petition addressed to the crown was passing through his hands, and he was growing rich upon the presents which were heaped upon him to buy his favour. He desired rank as well as wealth; and to be made a peer of Scotland-the reward which Mary Stuart intended for him-he required a share of the lands of the banished earls-the estates of Murray most especially-as food at once for his ambition and revenge. It is time to return to his friend and emissary Francis Yaxlee, who went at the end of August on a mission to Philip. Yaxlee to The conditions under which the King of Spain had Mission of promised his assistance seemed to have arrived. Mary Spain. Stuart had married Lord Darnley as he advised; her subjects had risen in insurrection with the secret support of the Queen of England, who was threatening to send an army into Scotland for their support. She had run into danger in the interests of the Church of Rome, and she looked with confidence to the most Catholic King to declare for her cause. Yaxlee found Philip at the beginning of October at Segovia. Elizabeth's diplomacy had been so far successful that the Emperor Maximilian was again dreaming that she would marry the Archduke Charles. He was anxious to provide his brother with a throne: he had been wounded by Mary Stuart's refusal to accept the Archduke, when his marriage with her had been arranged between himself and the Cardinal of Lorraine, with the sanction of the Council of Trent. Elizabeth had played upon his humour, and he had reverted CHAP IX to the scheme which had at one time been so anxiously 1565 entertained by his father and Philip.' The King of November Spain's own hopes of any such solution of the English ment of difficulty were waning; yet he was unwilling to offend the Emperor, and he would not throw away a card which Embarrass might after all be the successful one. It was perhaps Philip. the suspicion that Philip was not acting towards her with entire sincerity, which urged Mary Stuart into precipitancy; or she might have wished to force Elizabeth into a position in which it would be impossible for any Catholic sovereign to countenance her. But Elizabeth on the one hand had been too cautious, and Philip on the other, though wishing well to the Queen of Scots, and evidently believing that she was the only hope of the Catholic cause in England, yet could not overcome his constitutional slowness. He was willing to help her, yet only as Elizabeth had helped the Scotch insurgents, with a secrecy which would enable him to disavow what he had done. He was afraid of the Huguenot tendencies of the French Government; he was afraid that if he took an open part he might set a match to the mine which was about to explode in the Low Countries: he therefore repeated the cautions which Alva had given Beton at Bayonne; he gave Yaxlee a bond for twenty thousand crowns, which would be paid him by Granvelle at Brussels; he promised, if Elizabeth declared war, to contribute such further sums as should be necessary, but he He sends money to Mary, but will take no open step. Á noche recibi una carta de Chantonnay del 27 del pasado en que me escribe que habiendo dicho al Emperador de parte de V. M. que si era necesario que, para que se hiciese el negocio del matrimonio del Archiduque con la de Inglaterra, V. Md. escribiese á la reyna de su mano sobrello, y que el Emperador le habia respondido que no estaba desahuciado deste negocio, y le diria lo que sobrello habia de escribir á V. Ma. El deseo es grande que [el Emperador] tiene á este negocio.’— De Silva to Philip, November 10. MS. Simancas. |