such that he could not have saved his life except by the means which he had adopted. Elizabeth had doubtless made it a condition of her further friendship that he should say nothing by which she could herself be incriminated; and he contented himself with entreating her to intercede for him to obtain the Queen of Scots' forgiveness. She affected to hesitate. The Queen of Scots, she said, had so often refused her mediation that she knew not how she could offer it again, but she would communicate with her council, and when she had ascertained their opinions he should hear from her. Meanwhile she would have him understand that he was in great danger, and that he must consider himself a prisoner. The The Earl was then permitted to withdraw. Queen went aside with the Frenchmen, and assuring them that they might accept what they had witnessed as the exact truth, she begged that they would communicate it to the King of France. To de Silva, when he was next admitted to an audience, she repeated the story word by word, and to him as well as to the others she protested that rebels against their princes should receive from her neither aid nor countenance.' So ended this extraordinary scene. Sir James Melville's narrative carries the extravagance one point further. He describes Elizabeth as extorting from Murray an acknowledgment that she had not encouraged the rebellion, and as then bidding him depart from her 1 De Silva to Philip, November 5: MS. Simancas. presence an an unworthy traitor. Sir James Melville does but follow an official report which was drawn up under Elizabeth's eye and sanction, to be sent to Scotland and circulated through Europe. It was thus therefore that she herself desired the world to believe that she had spoken; and one falsehood more or less in a web of artifice could scarcely add to her discredit. For Murray's sake however it may be hoped that he was spared this further ignominy, and that de Silva's is the truer story. If the Earl did not declare in words however that Elizabeth was unconnected with the rebellion, he allowed her to disavow it in silence, and by his forbearance created for himself and Scotland a claim upon her gratitude. He was evidently no consenting party to the deception; and after leaving her presence he wrote to her in a letter what he had restrained himself from publicly declaring. 'Her treatment of him would have been more easy to bear,' he said, 'had he known in what he had offended;' he had done his uttermost with all his power to serve and gratify her;' and 'the more he considered the matter it was ever the longer the more grievous to him:' noblemen who had suffered in former times for maintaining English interests in Scotland, 'when their cause was not to be compared to the present, had been well received and liberally gratified; ' while he who had endeavoured to show a thankful heart in her service when any occasion was presented, could in no wise perceive by her Highness's answer any affection towards his present state;' her declaration had been more grievous to him than all his other troubles;' he trusted that he might in time receive from her some more comfortable answer.'' It does not appear that Elizabeth saw Murray any more. She was only anxious to be rid of his presence, which was an intolerable reproach to her; and with these words-the least which the occasion required, yet not without a sad dignity-he returned to his friends who had been sent on to Newcastle, where they were ordered for the present to remain. Elizabeth was left to play out in character the rest of her ignoble game. To the ambassadors, whom she intended to deceive, it was a transparent farce; and there was probably not a house in London, Catholic or Protestant, where her conduct, which she regarded as a political masterpiece, was not ridiculed as it deserved. But it must be allowed at least the merit of completeness. An elaborate account of the interview with Murray was sent to Randolph to be laid before the Queen of Scots; Elizabeth accompanied it with an autograph letter in which she attempted to impose on the keenest-witted woman living by telling her she wished she could have been present to have heard the terms in which she addressed her rebellious subject.' 'So far was she from espousing the cause of rebels and traitors,' she said, 'that she should hold herself disgraced if she had so much as tacitly borne with them;' she wished her name might be blotted out from the list of princes as unworthy to hold 1 The Earl of Murray to Queen Elizabeth, from Westminster, October 31: Scotch MSS. Rolls House. a place among them,' if she had done any such thing.1 At the same time she wrote to Randolph himself, saying frankly that her first impulse on Murray's arrival had been to accept partially, if not entirely, the conditions of peace which the Queen of Scots had offered to Tamworth. If the Queen of Scots would promise not to molest either herself or her children in the possession of the English throne, she had been ready to pledge her word that nothing should be done in England in prejudice of the Queen of Scots' title to 'the second place.' On reflection however it had seemed imprudent to show excessive eagerness. She had therefore written a letter which Randolph would deliver; and he might take the opportunity of saying that although the Darnley marriage had interrupted the friendship which had subsisted between the Queen of Scots and herself, yet that she desired only to act honourably and kindly towards her; and if the Queen of Scots would undertake to keep the peace, and would give the promise which she desired, she would send commissioners to Edinburgh to make a final arrangement." 1 Aussy je luy (Randolph) øy declaré tout au long le discours entre moy et ung de voz subjectz lequel j'espere vous contentera; soubhaitant que voz oreillez en eussent été juges pour y entendre et l'honneur et l'affection que je monstrois en vostre endroit; tout au rebours de ce qu'on dict que je defendois voz mauvaises subjectz contre vous; laquelle chose se tiendra tousjours très éloignée de mon cœur, estant trop grande ignominie pour une princesse à souffrir, non que à faire; soubhaitant alors qu'on me esblouisse du rang des princes comme estant indigne de tenir lieu.'-Elizabeth to the Queen of Scots, October 29: Scotch MSS. Rolls House. 2 Elizabeth to Randolph, October 29: Scotch MSS. Rolls House. 1 In a momentary recovery of dignity she added at the close of her letter, that if the Queen of Scots refused, 'she would defend her country and subjects from such annoyance as might be intended, and would finally use all such lawful means as God should give her to redress all offences and injuries already done or hereafter to be done to her or her subjects.' But an evil spirit of trickery and imbecility had taken possession of Elizabeth's intellect. The Queen of Scots naturally expressed the utmost readiness to receive commissioners sent from England to concede so much of what she had asked. By the time Mary's answer came, her Majesty, being no longer in a panic, had become sensible of the indignity of her proposal. She therefore bade Randolph 'so compass the matter that the Queen of Scots should rather send commissioners to England, as more honourable to herself;' and 'if the Queen of Scots said, as it was like she would, that the Queen of England had offered to send a commission thither, he should answer that he indeed said so and thought so, but that he did perceive he had mistaken her message.' Elizabeth's strength, could she only have known it, lay in the goodness of the cause which she represented. The essential interests both of England and Scotland were concerned in her success. She was the champion of liberty, and through her the two nations were emancipating themselves from spiritual tyranny. By the side of the Jesuits she was but a shallow driveller in 1 Elizabeth to Randolph, October 29: Scotch MSS. Rolls House. |