resolution which she could avow-either to interfere at once or distinctly to declare that she did not mean to interfere. Cecil, according to his usual habit, reviewed the situation and drew out in form its leading features. The two interests at stake were religion and the succession to the Crown. For religion 'it was doubtful how to meddle in another prince's controversy:''so far as politic laws were devised for the maintenance of the Gospel Christian men might defend it,' ' yet the best service which men could render to the truth was to serve God faithfully and procure by good living the defence thereof at His Almighty hand.' The succession was at once more critical and more impossible to leave untouched. The Queen of Scots appeared to intend to exact her recognition as 'second person' at the point of the sword. The unwillingness of the Queen of England to marry had unsettled the minds of her subjects, who, 'beholding the state of the Crown to depend only on the breath of one person,' were becoming restless and uneasy; and there were symptoms on all sides which pointed 'towards a civil quarrel in the realm.' The best remedy would be the fulfilment of the hopes which had been so long held out to the nation. If the Queen would marry all danger would at once be at an end. If she could not bring herself to accept that alternative, she might make the intrigues of the Scottish Queen with her Catholic subjects, the practising with Rome, the language of Darnley to Randolph, and the continued refusal to ratify the Treaty of Edinburgh, a ground for declaring war.1

1 Note in Cecil's hand, September, 1565: MS. Rolls House,

Every member of the council was summoned to London. The suspected Earls of Cumberland, Westmoreland, and Northumberland were invited to the Court, to remove them from the Border where they would perhaps be dangerous; and day after day the advisers of the Crown sat in earnest and inconclusive deliberation. A lucid statement was drawn up of Mary Stuart's proceedings from the day of Elizabeth's accession; every aggressive act on her part, every conciliatory movement of the Queen of England, were laid out in careful detail to assist the council in forming a judgment; the history was brought down to the latest moment, and one only important matter seems to have been withheld-the unfortunate promises which Elizabeth had made to the Earl of Murray and his friends at a time when she believed that a demonstration in Scotland would be sufficient to frighten Mary Stuart, and that she would never be called on to fulfil them.

In favour of sending assistance to the Protestant noblemen, it was urged that the Queen of Scots notoriously intended to overthrow the reformed religion, and to make her way to the English throne; the title of the Queen of England depended on the Reformation; if the Pope's authority was restored she would no longer be regarded as legitimate. To sit still in the face of the attitude which the Queen of Scots had assumed was to encourage her to continue her practices; and it was more prudent to encounter an enemy when it could be done at small cost and in her own country than to wait to be overtaken at home by war and rebellion which would be a thousand times more dangerous and costly.

On the other hand, to defend the insurgent subjects of a neighbouring sovereign was a dangerous precedent. If Elizabeth was justified in maintaining the Scotch Protestants, the King of Spain might claim as fair a right to interfere in behalf of the English Catholics. The form which a war would assume, and the contingencies which might arise from it, could not be foreseen, while the peril and expense were immediate and certain.

The arguments on both sides were so evenly balanced that it was difficult to choose between them. The council however, could it be proved that the Queen of Scots was in communication with the Pope to further her designs on England, were ready to consider that 'a great matter.' The name of the Pope was detested in England by men who believed themselves to hold every shred of Catholic doctrine; the creed was an opinion; the Pope was a political and most troublesome fact, with which under no circumstances were moderate English gentlemen inclined to have any more dealings. The Pope turned the scale; and the council, after some ineffectual attempts to find a middle course, resolved on immediately confiscating the estates of the Earl of Lennox; while they recommended the Queen to demand the ratification of the Treaty of Edinburgh, to send a fleet into the Forth, and to despatch a few thousand men to Berwick, to be at the disposal of the Earl of Bedford.1

Had these steps been taken, either Mary Stuart must have yielded, or there would have been an immediate

Notes of the Proceedings in Council at Westminster, September 24. In Cecil's hand: Cotton. MSS. CALIG. B. 10. Scotch MSS. Rolls House.

war.

But the council, though consenting and advising a decided course, were still divided: Norfolk, Arundel, Winchester, Mason, and Pembroke were in favour in the main of the Queen of Scots' succession, and they regarded Calvinists and Calvinism with a most heartfelt and genuine detestation. Elizabeth in her heart resented the necessity of identifying herself with the party of John Knox, and her mood varied from day to day. After the resolution of the council on the 24th she spoke at length to the French ambassador in praise of Murray, who, if his sister could but have known it, she said, was her truest friend-a noble, generous, and good man; she was fully aware of the Queen of Scots' designs against her; and when de Foix entreated her not to break the peace, she refused to give him any assurances, and she told him that if France assisted Mary Stuart she should receive it as an act of hostility against herself.1

But her energy spent itself in words, or rather both the Queen and those advisers whom she most trusted, even Sir William Cecil himself, oscillated backwards into a decision that the risk of war was too great to be encountered. The example might be fatal: the Catholic powers might interfere in England; the Romanists at home might mutiny; while to move an army was 'three times more chargeable than it was wont to be, whereof the experience at Havre might serve for example.' Two days after their first resolution therefore the council

1 Paul de Foix to the King of France, September 29: TEULET, vol. ii. 2 4 Causes that move me not to consent presently to war,' September 26. Note in Cecil's hand: Cotton. MSS. CALIG. B. 10.

assembled again, when Cecil informed them that he found a lack of disposition in the Queen's Majesty to allow of war or of the charges thereof;' she would break her word to the lords whom she had encouraged into insurrection; but it was better than to run the risk of a conflagration which might wrap all England in its flames. The idea of forcible interference was finally abandoned. De Mauvissière remained at Edinburgh sincerely endeavouring to keep Mary within bounds; and Cecil himself wrote a private letter of advice to her which he sent by the hands of a Captain Cockburn. There were reasons for supposing that her violence might have begun to cool. Darnley had desired that the command of the army might be given to his father; the Queen of Scots had insisted on bestowing it upon Bothwell,' who had won her favour by promising to bring in Murray dead or alive;2 and Lennox was holding off from the Court in jealous discontent.

October.

Cockburn on his arrival at Holyrood placed himself in communication with de Mauvissière. They waited on Mary together; and, expatiating on the ruinous effect of the religious wars of the Guises which had filled France with rage and hatred, they entreated her for her own sake to beware of the miserable example. The French ambassador told her that if she looked for aid from abroad she was deceiving her

1 Randolph speaking of Mary Stuart's relation with Bothwell at this time says 'I have heard a thing most strange, whereof I will not make mention till I have better

assurance than now I have.'-Randolph to Cecil, October 13: MS. Rolls House.

2 Cockburn to Cecil, October 2: MS. Ibid.