out of the tomb and waved the lovers once more asunder.1

Thus the season passed on; summer came, and James's birth found Elizabeth as far from marriage as ever; Parliament had been once more postponed, but the public service could be conducted no longer without a subsidy, and a meeting at Michaelmas was inevitable.

Scarcely was Mary Stuart delivered and the child's sex made known, than Sir James Melville was in the saddle. The night of the 19th he slept at Berwick; on the evening of the 22nd he rode into London. A grand party was going forward at Greenwich: the Queen was in full force and spirit, and the Court in its summer splendour. A messenger glided through the crowd and spoke to Cecil; Cecil whispered to his mistress, and Elizabeth flung herself into a seat, dropped her head upon her hand, and exclaimed The Queen of Scots is the mother of a fair son, and I am but a barren stock.' Bitter words!-how bitter those only knew who had watched her in the seven years' struggle between passion and duty.

She could have borne it better perhaps had her own scheme been carried out for a more complete self-sacrifice, and had Leicester been the father of the future king. Then at least she would have seen her darling honoured and great; then she would have felt secure of

1 It was probably at this time | There is little room for doubt that Appleyard made his confession that the menace of exposure was the in'he had covered his sister's murder,' strument made use of to prevent and that Sir Thomas Blount was Elizabeth from ruining herself.secretly examined by the council. See cap. 39.

her rival's loyalty and of the triumph of those great principles of English freedom for which she had fought her long, and as it now seemed, her losing battle. The Queen of Scots had challenged her crown, intrigued with her subjects, slighted her councils, and defied her menaces, and this was the result.

But Elizabeth had been apprenticed in self-control. By morning she had overcome her agitation and was able to give Melville an audience.

The ambassador entered her presence radiant with triumph. The Queen affected, perhaps she forced herself to feel, an interest in his news,. and she allowed him to jest upon the difficulty with which the prince had been brought into the world. 'I told her,' he reported afterwards,' 'that the Queen of Scots had dearly bought her child, being so sore handled that she wished she had never been married. This I said by the way to give her a scare from marriage and from Charles of Austria.' Elizabeth smiled painfully and spoke as graciously as she could, though Melville believed that at heart she was burning with envy and disappointment. The trial was doubtless frightful, and the struggle to brave it may have been but half successful; yet when he pressed her to delay the recognition no longer she seemed to feel that she could not refuse, and she promised to take the opinion of the lawyers without further hesitation. So great indeed had been the disappointment of English statesmen at the last trifling

1 MELVILLE'S Memoirs.

with the Archduke that they had abandoned hope. The Scottish Prince was the sole object of their interest, and all the motives which before had recommended Mary Stuart were working with irresistible force. Whatever might be the Queen's personal reluctance, Melville was able to feel that it would avail little; the cause of his mistress, if her game was now played with tolerable skill, was virtually won. Norfolk declared for her, Pembroke declared for her, no longer caring to conceal their feelings; even Leicester, now that his own chances were over, became the Queen of Scots' avowed friend,' and pressed her claims upon Elizabeth, 'alleging that to acknowledge them would be her greatest security, and that Cecil would undo all.' All that Melville found necessary was to give his mistress a few slight warnings and cautions.

1

Her recognition as second person he knew July. that she regarded as but a step to the dethronement of Elizabeth; nor did he advise her to abandon her ambition. He did not wish her to slacken her correspondence with the Catholics; she need not cease to entertain O'Neil;' but he required her only to be prudent and secret. Seeing the great mark her Majesty shot at, she should be careful and circumspect, that her desires being so near to be obtained should not be overthrown for lack of management.'"

August.

Schooled for once by advice, Mary Stuart wrote from her sick bed to Melville's brother

1 MELVILLE's Memoirs.

2 Ibid.

Robert. The letter appeared to be meant only for himself, but it was designed to be shown among the Protestant nobility of England. She declared in it that she meant nothing but toleration in religion, nothing but good in all ways; she protested that she had no concealed designs, no unavowed wishes; her highest ambition went no farther than to be recognized by Parliament, with the consent of her dear sister.

With these words in their hands the Melvilles made swift progress in England. Elizabeth's uncertainties and changes had shaken her truest friends; and even before the Parliament some popular demonstrations were looked for.

'There are threats of disturbance,' de Silva wrote in August, and trouble is looked for before the meeting of Parliament. For the present we are reassured, but it is likely enough that something will happen. The Queen is out of favour with all sides: the Catholics hate her because she is not a Papist, the Protestants because she is less furious and violent in heresy than they would like to see her; while the courtiers complain of her parsimony.' James Melville was soon able to send the gratifying assurance to the Queen of Scots, that should Elizabeth continue the old excuses and delays her friends were so increased that many whole shires were ready to rebel, and their captains already named by election of the nobility.'"

In such a world and with such humours abroad the

De Silva to Philip, August 23, 1566: MS. Simancas.

2 MELVILLE's Memoirs.

approaching session could not fail to be a stormy one; and Elizabeth knew, though others might affect to be ignorant, that if shew as forced into a recognition of Mary Stuart a Catholic revolution would not be many months distant.

At the beginning of August, to gather strength and spirit for the struggle, she went on progress, not to the northern counties where the Queen of Scots had hoped to meet her, but first to Stamford on a visit to Cecil, thence round to Woodstock, her old prison in the perilous days of her sister, and finally, on the evening of the 31st, she paid Oxford the honour which two years before she had conferred on the sister University. The preparations for her visit were less gorgeous, the reception itself far less imposing, yet the fairest of her cities in its autumnal robe of sad and mellow loveliness, suited the Queen's humour, and her stay there had a peculiar interest.

She travelled in a carriage. At Wolvercot, three miles out on the Woodstock road, she was met by the heads of houses in their gowns and hoods. The approach was by the long north avenue leading to the north gate; and as she drove along it she saw in front of her the black tower of Bocardo, where Cranmer had been long a prisoner, and the ditch where with his brother martyrs he had given his life for the sins of the people. The scene was changed from that chill, sleety morning, and the soft glow of the August sunset was no unfitting symbol of the change of times; yet how soon such another season might tread upon the heels of the de