believe Elizabeth capable of breaking promises so emphatically and so repeatedly made to them. They wrote through Randolph that they were still at the Queen of England's devotion. They would hold out as long as their strength lasted; but it was already tasked to the uttermost, and if left to themselves they would have to yield to superior force. The catastrophe came quicker than they anticipated. The friends of the Congregation were invited by circulars to meet at Ayr on the 24th of August. On the 25th the Queen of Scots-after a tempestuous interview with Randolph, who had demanded Tamworth's release -mounted her horse and rode out of Edinburgh at the head of 5000 men to meet her enemies in the field. Darnley, in gilt armour, was at her side. She herself carried pistols in hand and pistols at her saddlebow. Her one peculiar hope was to encounter and destroy her brother, against whom, above and beyond his political opposition, she bore an especial and unexplained animosity.1 1 'I never heard more outrage- | nor yet for that she now speakethous words than she spoke against that he would take the crown from my Lord of Murray. She said she her, as she said lately to myself-but would rather lose her crown than that she knoweth that he knoweth not be revenged upon him. She has some such secret fact, not to be some further cause of quarrel with named for reverence sake, that standhim than she cares to avow.'-Ran- eth not with her honour, which he dolph to Cecil, August 27: MS. so much detesteth, being her brother, Rolls House. Shortly after, Ran- that neither can he show himself as dolph imagined that he had dis- he hath done, nor she think of him covered the further cause.' 'The but as of one whom she mortally hatred conceived against my Lord of hateth. Here is the mischief, this Murray is neither for his religion is the grief; and how this may be With the money sent her from abroad she had contrived to raise six hundred 'harquebussmen,' whom the half-armed retainers of the lords could not hope to engage successfully. Passing Linlithgow and Stirling she swept swiftly round to Glasgow, and cut off the retreat of the Protestants into the western hills. A fight was looked for at Hamilton, where 'a hundred gentlemen of her party determined to set on Murray in the battle, and either slay him or tarry behind lifeless.'1 Outnumbered for they had in all but 1300 horseand outmanœuvred by the rapid movements of the Queen, the Protestants fell back on Edinburgh, where they expected the citizens to declare for them. On the last of August, six days after Mary Stuart had left solved and repaired it passeth man's wit to consider. This reverence, for all that he hath to his sovereign, that I am sure there are very few that know this grief; and to have this obloquy and reproach of her removed, I believe he would quit his country for all the days of his life.' -Randolph to Cecil, October 13: MS. Ibid. have laid herself open to remark through some indiscretion, than that she should have seriously compromised her character. It seems certain that Murray intended to have hanged Rizzio. Paul de Foix asked Elizabeth for an explanation of the Queen of Scots' animosity against her brother : 'Elle s'estant ung peu teue, et The mystery alluded to was ap- secoué sa teste, me respondit que parently the intimacy of Mary Stu-c'estoit pour ce que la Royne d'Escosse avoit esté informée que le Comte de Murray avoit voullu pendre ung Italien nommé David qu'elle aymoit et favorisoit, luy donnant plus de credit que ses affaires et honneur ne devoient.'-Paul de Foix au Roy: Teulet, vol. ii. art with Rizzio, which was already 1 Randolph to Cecil, September MS. Rolls House. Holyrood, Chatelherault, Murray, Glencairn, Rothes, Boyd, Kirkaldy, and a few more gentlemen, rode with their servants into the West Port, and sending a courier to Berwick with a pressing entreaty for help, they prepared to defend themselves. But the Calvinist shopkeepers who could be so brave against a miserable priest had no stomach for a fight with armed men. The Queen was coming fast behind them like an avenging fury; and Erskine, who was inclining to the royal side, began to fire on the lords from the castle. In the town they could find neither help nor support from any one,' and the terrified inhabitants could only entreat and even insist that they should depart. A fortnight before, a little money and a few distinct words from England would have sufficed to save them. Mary Stuart's courage and Elizabeth's remissness had by this time so strengthened the party of the Queen that 'little good could now be done without greater support than could be in readiness in any short time.' The lords could only retire towards the Border and wait Elizabeth's pleasure. 'What was promised,' Randolph passionately wrote to Cecil, 'your honour knoweth. Oh that her Majesty's mind was known! If the Earl of Bedford have only commission to act in this matter both Queens may be in one country before long. In the whole world if there be a more malicious heart towards the Queen my sovereign than hers that here now reigneth, let me be hanged at my home-coming or counted a villain for ever.'1 1 Randolph to Cecil, September 4: MS. Rolls House. September. Mary meanwhile had re-entered Edinburgh, breathing nothing but anger and defiance. Argyle was in his own Highlands wasting the adjoining lands of Athol and Lennox; but she scarcely noticed or cared for Argyle. The affection of a sister for a brother was curdled into a hatred the more malignant because it was unnatural. Her whole passion was concentrated on Murray, and after Murray on Elizabeth. The day before she had left Holyrood for the west an Englishman named Yaxlee had arrived there from Flanders. This person, who has been already mentioned as in the service of Lady Lennox, had been employed by her as the special agent of her correspondence with the continental Courts. Lady Lennox being now in the Tower, Yaxlee followed the fortunes of her son, and came to Scotland to place himself at the disposal of Mary Stuart. He was a conspirator of the kind most dangerous to his employers, vain, loud, and confident, fond of boasting of his acquaintance with kings and princes, and 'promising to bring to a good end whatsoever should be committed to him.' The wiser sort' soon understood and avoided him. The Queen of Scots however allowed herself to be persuaded by her husband, and placed herself in Yaxlee's power. She told him all her schemes at home and all the promises which had been made to her abroad. The Bishop of Dunblane at Rome had requested the Pope to lend her twelve thousand men, and the Pope was waiting only for Philip's sanction and co-operation to send VOL. VII. 21 them.1 She selected Yaxlee to go on a mission to Spain to explain her position, and to 'remit her claims, prospects, and the manner of the prosecution thereof' to Philip's judgment and direction. Vain of the trust reposed in him, the foolish creature was unable to keep his counsel. His babbling tongue revealed all that he knew and all that he was commissioned to do; and the report of it was soon in Cecil's hands.2 Philip would no doubt be unwilling to move. Philip, like Elizabeth, was fond of encouraging others to run into difficulties by promises which he repudiated if they were inconvenient; and in this particular instance Mary Stuart had gone beyond his advice and had placed herself in a position against which the Duke of Alva had pointedly warned her. But the fears of the Spaniards for the safety of the Low Countries were every day increasing; they regarded England as the fountain from which the heresies of the continent were fed; and they looked to the recovery of it to the Church as the only means of restoring order in their own provinces.3 |