the arts to which she condescended; and she was about to find that after all the paths of honour were the paths of safety, and that she could have chosen no weapon more dangerous to herself than the chicanery of which she considered herself so accomplished a mistress. She had mistaken the nature of English and Scottish gentlemen in supposing that they would be the instruments of a disgraceful policy, and she had done her rival cruel wrong in believing that she could be duped with artifices so poor. 'Send as many ambassadors as you please to our Queen,' said Sir William Kirkaldy to Bedford; they shall receive a proud answer. She thinks to have a force as soon ready as you do, besides the hope she has to have friendship in England. If force of men and ships come not with the ambassadors, their coming and travail shall be spent in vain.'1 Even Cecil perhaps now deplored the November. effects of his own timidity. 'I have received,' wrote Bedford to him, 'your gentle and sorrowful letter. It grieveth me that things will frame no better. The evil news will be the overthrow of three hundred gentlemen of Scotland that are zealous and serviceable.' Too justly Bedford feared that the Scotch Protestants in their resentment would become the worst enemies. that England ever had;' too clearly he saw that Elizabeth by her miserable trifling had ruined her truest friends; that however anxious she might be for peace 1 Kirkaldy to Bedford, October 31: Scotch MSS. Rolls House. VOL. VII. 23 'the war would come upon her when least she looked for it; and that Mary Stuart now regarded her with as much contempt as hatred. 'Alas! my lord,' he wrote to Leicester, 'is this the end? God help us all and comfort these poor lords. There is by these dealings overthrown a good duke, some earls, many other barons, lords, and gentlemen, wise, honest, religious. Above all am I driven to bemoan the hard case of the Earl of Murray and the Laird of Grange, whose affection to this whole realm your lordship knows right well. I surely think there came not a greater overthrow to Scotland these many years; for the wisest, honestest, and godliest are discomfited and undone. There is now no help for them, unless God take the matter in hand, but to commit themselves to their prince's will and pleasure. And what hath England gotten by helping them in this sort? even as many mortal enemies of them as before it had dear friends; for otherwise will not that Queen receive them to mercy, if she deal no worse with them; nor without open and evident demonstration of the same cannot they assure themselves of her favour; and the sooner they thus do the sooner they shall have her to conceive a good opinion of them, and the sooner they shall be restored to their livelihoods.' 1 'Greater account might have been made of the lords' good-will,' wrote Randolph. If there be living a more mortal enemy to the Queen my mistress than Bedford to Leicester, November 5: Scotch MSS. Rolls House. 1 " this woman is, I desire never to be reputed but the vilest villain alive.' The lords,' concluded Bedford, scornfully, 'abandoned by man and turned over to God, must now do the best they can for themselves.' And what that was, what fruit would have grown from those strokes of diplomatic genius, had Mary Stuart been equal to the occasion, Elizabeth would ere long have tasted in deposition and exile or death. Randolph, faithful to the end, might say and unsay, might promise and withdraw his word, and take on himself the blame of his mistress's changing humour; Bedford, with ruin full in view before him, might promise at all risks 'to obey her bidding.' But the lords of Scotland were no subjects of England, to be betrayed into rebellion in the interests of a country which they loved with but half their hearts, and when danger came to be coolly 'turned over to God.' Murray might forgive, for Murray's noble nature had no taint of self in it; but others could resent for him what he himself could pardon. Argyle, his brother-in-law, when he heard of that scene in London, bade Randolph tell his mistress 'he found it very strange; the Queen of Scots had made him many offers, and till that time he had refused them all; if the Queen of England would reconsider herself he would stick to the English cause and fight for it with lands and life; but he demanded an answer within ten days. If she persisted he would make terms with his own sovereign.' The ten days 2 Randolph to Leicester, November 8: Ibid. passed and no answer came. Argyle withdrew the check which through the Scots of the Isles he had held over Shan O'Neil, and Ireland blazed into fury and madness; while Argyle himself from that day forward till Mary Stuart's last hopes were scattered at Langside, became the enemy of all which till that hour he had most loved and fought for. Nor was Argyle alone in his anger. Sir James Melville saw the opportunity, and urged on his mistress a politic generosity. From the day of her return from France he showed her that she had laboured without effect to sever her nobility from England.' The Queen of England had now done for her what for herself she could not do; and if she would withdraw her prosecutions, pardon Murray, pardon Chatelherault, pardon Kirkaldy and Glencairn, she might command their devotion for ever.' Melville found an ally where he could have least looked for it to repeat the same advice. Sir Nicholas Throgmorton had for the last six years been at the heart of every Protestant conspiracy in Europe. He it was of whose experienced skill Elizabeth had availed herself to light the Scotch insurrection. His whole nature revolted against the paltry deception of which he had been made the instrument; and now throwing himself passionately into the interests of the Queen of Scots, he advised the lords to sue for pardon at their own Queen's hands, and engage never to offend her again for the satisfaction of any prince alive;' I MELVILLE's Memoirs. while more daringly and dangerously he addressed Mary Stuart herself. 'Your Majesty,' he said, 'has in England many friends who favour your title for divers respects; some for conscience thinking you have the right; some from personal regard; some for religion; some for faction; some for the ill-will they bear to Lady Catherine your competitor. Your friends and enemies alike desire to see the succession settled. Parliament must meet next year at latest; and it must be your business meanwhile to assure yourself of the votes of the majority, which if you will you can obtain. You have done wisely in marrying an Englishman; we do not love strangers. Make no foreign alliance till you have seen what we can do for you. Keep on good terms with France and Spain, but do not draw too close to them. Go on moderately in religion as you have hitherto done, and you will find Catholics as well as Protestants on your side. Show clemency to the banished lords. You will thus win many hearts in England. Be careful, be generous, and you will command us all. I do not write as a fetch to induce you to take the lords back; it is thought expedient for your service by many who have no favour to them and are different from them in religion 'The Earl of Murray has offended you it is true; but the Protestants persuade themselves that his chief fault in your eyes is his religion, and on that ground they take his side. Pardon him, restore him to favour, and win by doing so all Protestant hearts. The lords will in no wise if they can eschew it be again in the Queen |