CHAPTER X.

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Stuart in

England.

THE HE murder of Ritzio had deranged Mary Stuart's CHAP X projects in Scotland, and had obliged her to postpone her intended restoration of Catholicism; but her hold on Increasing popularity parties in England was rather increased than injured by of Mary the interruption of a policy which would have alarmed the moderate Protestants. The extreme Puritans still desired to see the succession decided in favour of the children of Lady Catherine Grey; but their influence in the state had been steadily diminishing as the Marian horrors receded further into the distance. The majority of the peers, the country gentlemen, the lawyers and the judges, were in favour of the pretensions which were recommended at once by justice and by the solid interests of the realm. The union of the crowns of Scotland and England was the most serious desire of the wisest of Elizabeth's statesmen, and the marriage of Mary Stuart with Darnley had removed the prejudice which had attached before to her alien birth.

The difficulty which had hitherto prevented her recognition had been the persistency with which she identified herself with the party of revolution and ultramontane fanaticism. The English people had no desire for a Puritan sovereign, but as little did they wish to see again the evil days of Bonner and Gardiner. They were jealous of

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CHAP X their national independence; they had done once for all with the Pope, and they would have no priesthoods Catholic or Calvinist to pry into their opinions or meddle with their personal liberty. For a creed they would be best contented with a something which would leave them in communion with Christendom, and preserve to them the form of superstition without the power of it.

Had Elizabeth allowed herself to be swayed by the ultra-Protestants, Mary Stuart would have appealed to arms, and would have found the weightiest portion of the nation on her side. Had the Queen of Scots' pretensions been admitted so long as her attitude to the Reformation was that of notorious and thorough-going hostility, she would have supplied a focus for disaffection. A prudent and reasonable settlement would have been then made impossible; and England sooner or later would have become the scene of a savage civil war like that which had lacerated France.

Elizabeth with the best of her advisers expected that as she grew older Mary Stuart would consent to guarantee the liberties which England essentially valued, and that bound by conditions which need not have infringed her own liberty of creed, she could be accepted as the future Queen of the united island. It was with this view that the reversion of the crown had been held before Mary Stuart's eyes coupled with the terms on which it might be hers, while the Puritans had been forbidden to do anything which might have driven her to the ultimatum of force.

The intrigues with Spain, the Darnley marriage, and the attitude which the Queen of Scots had assumed in connexion with it, had almost precipitated a crisis. Elizabeth had been driven in despair to throw herself on the fanaticism of the Congregation, to endorse the de

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character

beth's

mands of Knox that the Queen of Scots should abjure CHAP X her own religion, and afterwards to retreat from her position with ignominious and dishonourable evasions. Yet the perplexity of a sovereign whose chief duty at such a time was to prevent a civil war, deserves or demands a lenient consideration. Had Elizabeth declared war in the interest of Murray and the Protestants, she would have saved her honour, but she would have provoked a bloody insurrection; while it would have become more difficult than ever to recognize the Queen of Scots, more hopeless than ever to persuade her into moderation and good sense. If Elizabeth's conduct in its details had General been alike unprincipled and unwise, the broader bearings of Eliza of her policy were intelligible and commendable; her policy. caprice and vacillation arose from her consciousness of the difficulties by which she was on every side surrounded. The Queen of Scots herself had so far shown in favourable contrast with her sister of England: she had deceived her enemies, but she had never betrayed a friend. The greater simplicity of conduct however was not wholly a virtue it had been produced by the absence of all high and generous consideration. Ambition for herself and zeal for a creed which suited her habits, were motives of action which involved and required no inconsistencies. From the day on which she set foot in Scotland she had kept her eye on Elizabeth's throne, and she had determined to restore Catholicism; but her public schemes were but mirrors in which she could see the reflection of her own greatness, and her creed was but the form of conviction which least interfered with her selfindulgence: the passions which were blended with her policy made her incapable of the restraint which was necessary for her success; while her French training had taught her lessons of the pleasantness of pleasure, for

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CHAP X which she was at any time capable of forgetting every other consideration. Elizabeth forgot the woman in the Queen, and after her first mortification about Leicester preserved little of her sex but its caprices. Mary Stuart when under the spell of an absorbing inclination, could fling her crown into the dust and be woman all.

Prospects of

of Scots.

Could she have submitted to the advice so consistently the Queen pressed upon her by Philip, Alva, Melville, Throgmorton, by every wise friend that she possessed, the impatience of the English for a settlement of the succession would have rendered her success certain. She had only to avoid giving occasion for just complaint or suspicion, and the choice of the country notwithstanding her creed--or secretly perhaps in consequence of it-would have inevitably at no distant time have been determined in her favour. Elizabeth she knew to be more for her than against her. The Conservative weight of the country party would have far outbalanced the Puritanism of the large towns.

But a recognition of her right to an eventual inheritance was not at all the object of Mary Stuart's ambition; nor in succeeding to the English throne did she intend to submit to trammels like those under which she had chafed in Scotland. She had spoken of herself, not as the prospective, but as the actual Queen of England;' she had told the lords who had followed her to Dumfries that she would lead them to the gates of London; she would not wait; she would make no compromise; she would wrench the sceptre out of Elizabeth's hands,

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with a Catholic army at her back as the first step of a CHAP X Catholic revolution. Even here so far had fortune favoured her she might have succeeded could she but have kept Scotland united, could she but have availed herself skilfully of the exasperation of the Lords of the Congregation when they found themselves betrayed and deserted, could she have remained on good terms with her husband and his father, and kept the friends of the house of Lennox in both countries true to her cause. That opportunity she had allowed to escape. It remained to be seen whether she had learnt prudence from the catastrophe from which she had so narrowly escaped; whether she would now abandon her more dangerous courses, and fall back on moderation; or whether, if she persisted in trying the more venturous game, she could bring herself to forego the indulgence of those personal inclinations and antipathies which had caused the tragedy at Holyrood. If she could forget her injuriesif she could bury in Ritzio's grave her desire to revenge his murder-if she avoided giving open scandal to the Catholic friends of Darnley and his mother, her prospects of an heir would more than re-establish her in the vantage-ground from which she had been momentarily

shaken.

Elizabeth, either through fear or policy, seemed as anxious as ever to disconnect herself from the Congregation. The English Government had been informed a month beforehand of the formation of the plot; they had allowed it to be carried into execution without remonstrance; but when the thing was done, and Murray was restored, the Queen made haste to clear herself of the suspicion of having favoured it. Sir Robert Melville was residing in London, and was occupied notoriously in gaining friends for the Scotch succession. Elizabeth

ELIZ. II.

T