April returns to Scotland. Darnley reached Edinburgh on the 12th of February; and CHAP VIII a week later he was introduced to Mary at Wemyss Castle 1565 in Fife. As yet he had but few friends: the most powerful of the Catholic nobles looked askance at him; Darnley the Cardinal of Lorraine, the Cardinal of Guise, and the widowed Duchess, misunderstanding the feeling of his friends in England, imagined that in accepting a youth who had been brought up at Elizabeth's court the Queen of Scots was throwing up the game.' The Archbishop of Glasgow, Mary's minister in Paris-a Beton, and therefore an hereditary enemy of Lennox-sent an estafette to Madrid in the hope that Philip would dissuade her from a step which he regarded as fatal; and though Melville, who was in the confidence of the English Catholics, assured her 'that no marriage was more in her interest, seeing it would render her title to the succession of the crown unquestionable,' although Ritzio, the known minion of the Pope,' threw himself into Darnley's intimacy so warmly that they would lie sometimes in one bed together," Mary Stuart either delayed her resolution or delayed the publication of it till Philip's answer should arrive. She had not yet relinquished hope of extracting concessions from Elizabeth by professing a desire to be guided by her; she was afraid of driving Elizabeth by over-precipitancy to accept the advances of France. 6 1565 March CHAP VIII dolph that she would be guided by her sister's' wishes. How to be sure, that it is her real mind and not words only,' Randolph wrote on the 1st of March, ‘is harder than I will take upon me; but so far as words go, to me and others she seems fully determined. Ι never at any time had better hopes of her than now.'' Yet the smooth words took no shape in action. She pressed Randolph every day to know Elizabeth's resolution, but the conditions on both sides remained as they were left at Berwick. Elizabeth said to Mary Stuart, Marry as I wish and then you shall see what I will do for you.' Mary said, 'Recognize me first as your successor and I will then be all that you desire.' Each distrusted the other; but Elizabeth had the most producible reason for declining to be credulous. However affectionate the Queen of Scots' language might be, the Treaty of Edinburgh remained unratified. Mur The more Mary pressed for recognition therefore, the more Elizabeth determined to withhold what if once conceded could not afterwards be recalled, till by some decisive action her suspicions should have been removed. With the suspense other dangerous symptoms began to show themselves. Soon after Darnley's appearance the Queen of Scots made attempts to reintroduce the mass. ray told Randolph that if she had her way in her "Papistry" things would be worse than ever they were.' Argyle said that unless she married as the Queen of England desired he and his would have to provide for their The chapel at Holyrood was thrown open to all comers; and while the Queen insisted that her subjects should be free to live as they listed,' the Protestants 'offered their lives to be sacrificed before they would 1 Randolph to Cecil, March 1.-Scotch MSS. Rolls House. 1565 March suffer such an abomination.' Becoming aggressive in CHAP VIII turn they threatened to force the Queen into conformity, and they by their violence kindled in her a desire to revenge.' Mary Stuart was desiring merely to reconcile the Catholics of the anti-Lennox faction to her marriage with Darnley. There was fighting about the chapel door; the priest was attacked at the altar; and in the daily quarrels at the council-board the Lords of the Congregation told Mary openly that 'if she thought of marrying a Papist it would not be borne with.' Suddenly-unlooked for and uninvited-the evil spirit of the storm, the Earl of Bothwell, reappeared at Mary's Court. She disclaimed all share in his return; he was still attainted; yet there he stood-none daring to lift a hand against him-proud, insolent, and dangerous. 1 postpones ment succession. At this crisis Randolph brought Mary a message Elizabeth which she was desired to accept as final; that until the settleElizabeth had herself married or had made up her mind me of the not to marry, the succession must remain unsettled. The Queen of Scots 'wept her fill;' but tears in those eyes were no sign of happy promise. Randolph so little liked the atmosphere that he petitioned for his own recall. Lennox had gathered about him a knot of wild and desperate youths-Cassilis, Eglinton, Montgomery, and Bothwell-the worst and fiercest of all. Darnley had found a second friend and adviser besides Ritzio in Lord Robert Stuart, the Queen's half-brother, 'a man full of all evil.' The Queen's own marriage with him was now generally spoken of; and Chatelherault, Argyle, and Murray, gave the English ambassador notice that mischief was in the wind, and joined themselves in a new bond to defend each other's quarrels." 1 Randolph to Cecil, March 15, March 17, and March 20.—MS. Rolls House. K CHAP VIII 'To help all these unhappy ones,' Randolph wrote to 1565 Cecil, I doubt not but you will take the best way; March and this I can assure you that contrary to my sovereign's will, let them attempt, let them seek, let them send to all the cardinals and devils in hell, it shall exceed their power to bring anything to pass, so that be not refused the Queen of Scots which in reason ought to content her.'1 The elements of uncertainty and danger were already too many, when it pleased Elizabeth to introduce another which completed the chaos and shook the three kingdoms. Despising doctrinal Protestantism too keenly to do justice to its professors, Elizabeth had been long growing impatient of excesses like that which had shocked her at Cambridge, and had many times expressed Elizabeth her determination to bring the Church to order. Her own creed was a perplexity to herself and to the world. order in the With no tinge of the meaner forms of superstition, she determines to restore Church. clung to practices which exasperated the Reformers, while the Catholics laughed at their inconsistency; her crucifixes and candles, if adopted partly from a politic motive of conciliation, were in part also an expression of that half belief with which she regarded the symbols of the faith; and while ruling the clergy with a rod of iron, and refusing as sternly as her father to tolerate their pretensions to independence, she desired to force upon them a special and semi-mysterious character; to dress them up as counterfeits of the Catholic hierarchy; and half in reverence, half in contempt, compel them to assume the name and character of a priesthood which both she and they in their heart of hearts knew to be an illusion and a dream. 1 Randolph to Cecil, March 20.-COTTON MSS. CALIG, B. 10. 1565 March Elizabeth's view of this subject cannot be called a CHAP VIII fault. It was the result of her peculiar temperament; and in principle was but an anticipation of the eventual attitude into which the minds of the laity would subside. But the theory in itself is suited only to settled times, when it is safe from the shock of external trials; from the first it has been endured with impatience by those nobler minds to whom sincerity is a necessity of existence; and in the first establishment of the English Church, and especially when Elizabeth attempted to insist on conditions which overstrained the position, she tried the patience of the most enduring clergy in the world. riage of Her first and greatest objection was to their marriage. The marThe holy state of matrimony was one which she could not the clergy. contemplate without bitterness; and although she could not at the time of her accession prevent the clergy from taking wives, and dared not re-enact the prohibitory laws of her sister, she refused to revive the permissive statutes of Edward. She preferred to leave the archbishops and bishops, with their children legally illegitimate, and themselves under the imputation of concubinage. Nor did time tend to remove her objections. Cecil alone in 1561 prevented her from making an attempt to enforce celibacy. To the Archbishop of Canterbury himself 'she expressed a repentance that he and the other married bishops were in office, wishing it had been otherwise;' she thought them worse as they were than in the glorious shame of a counterfeited chastity;' 'I was 1Her Majesty continues very illaffected towards the state of matrimony in the clergy; and if I were not therein very stiff, her Majesty would utterly and openly condemn |