you should perfectly know what love meaneth; but you shall shortly understand it, for there is no young man, prince nor other, but he doth pass by it. It is the foolishest thing, the most impatient, most hasty, most without respect that can be.'

With that the King blushed.

'The Queen said this is no foolish love.

"No, Madame,' quoth I, 'this is with respect and upon good grounds, and therefore may be done with deliberation.''1

"So your Majesty is to marry the King of France after all,' said de Silva to Elizabeth a little after this. 'She half hid her face and laughed. 'It is Lent,' she said; and you are a good friend, so I will confess my sins to you. My brother the Catholic King wished to marry me, the King of Sweden and Denmark wished to marry me, the King of France wishes to marry me.'

"And the Archduke also,' said de Silva.

1 Sir Thomas Smith to Elizabeth, April 15: French MSS. Rolls House.

Elizabeth had desired the ambassador to describe the young King to her.

Smith said he was a pale, thin, sickly, ungainly boy, with large knee and ankle joints. His health had been injured by over-doses of medicine. He seemed amiable, cheerful, and more intelligent than might have been expected, 'seeing he had not been brought up to learning, and spoke no language but his

own.'

In a letter to Cecil, the ambassador said

'The Queen-mother hath a very good opinion of you. She liketh marvellous well that you had a son in your fourteenth or fifteenth year, for she hopeth therefore that her son the King shall have a son as well as you in his sixteenth year, and thinketh you may serve as an example to the Queen's Majesty not to contemn the young years of the King's.'-Smith to Cecil: MS. Ibid.

Your Prince,' she went on without noticing the interruption, is the only one who has not been at my feet; I have had all the rest.'

"When the King my master failed,' replied de Silva, 'he supposed your Majesty would never marry

at all.'

"There was no need of so hasty a conclusion,' she said; although it is true that at that time I was very unwilling to marry; and I assure you that if at this moment I could name any fitting person to succeed to my crown I would not marry now; I have always shrunk from it; but my subjects insist, and I suppose I shall be forced to comply unless I can contrive some alternative, which will be very difficult. The world, when a woman remains single, assumes that there must be something wrong about her, and that she has some discreditable reason for it. They said of me that I would not marry because I was in love with the Earl of Leicester, and that I could not marry him because he had a wife already; yet now he has no wife, and for all that I do not marry him, although at one time the King my brother advised me to do it. But what are we to do? tongues will talk, and for ourselves we can but do our duties and keep our account straight with God. Truth comes out at last, and God knows my heart that I am not what people say I am.''1

Meanwhile in Scotland the drama was fast progressing. Darnley reached Edinburgh on the 12th of

1 MIGNET; Appendix 6.

:

February; and a week later he was introduced to Mary at Wemyss Castle in Fife. As yet he had but few friends the most powerful of the Catholic nobles looked askance at him; 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 Rizzio, 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 disguised 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

2

desire to be guided by her; she was afraid of driving Elizabeth by over-precipitancy to accept the advances of France.

In the interval therefore she continued to assure Randolph 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

March.

of March, is harder than I will take upon me; but so far as words go, to me and others she seems fully determined. I never at any time had better hopes of her than now.'1

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.

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 suspicion should have been removed. With the suspense other dangerous symptoms began to show themselves. Soon after Darnley's

1 Randolph to Cecil, March 1: Scotch MSS. Rolls House.

appearance the Queen of Scots made attempts to reintroduce the mass. Murray 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 own.' 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 suffer such an abomination.' Becoming aggressive in 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

At this crisis Randolph brought Mary a message which she was desired to accept as final; that until Elizabeth had herself married or had made up her mind

House.

Randolph to Cecil, March 15, March 17, and March 20: MS. Rolls