Elizabeth was perfectly aware of the dangers which were thickening round her, and the effect was to end her uncertainty and to determine her to shake herself clear from the failing fortunes of the noblemen whom she had invited to rebel. They had halted at Dumfries, close to the Border, where Murray, thinking that 'nothing worse could happen than an agreement while the Queen of Scots had the upper hand and they without a force in the field,' was with difficulty keeping together the remnant of his party. The Earl of Bedford, weary of waiting for instructions which never came, wrote at last half in earnest and half in irony to Elizabeth to propose that she should play over again the part which she had played with Winter; he would himself enter Scotland with the Berwick garrison, and her Majesty could afterwards seem to blame him for attempting such things as with the help of others he could bring about."" But Elizabeth was too much frightened to consent even to a vicarious fulfilment of her promises. She replied that if the lords were in danger of being taken the Earl might cover their retreat into England; she sent him three thousand pounds which if he pleased he might place in their hands; but he must give them to understand precisely that both the one and the other were his own acts, for which she would accept neither thanks nor responsibility. You shall make them perceive your case to be such,' she said, 'as if it should appear otherwise your danger should be so great as all the friends 1 Murray to Randolph, September 8: MS. Rolls House. 2 Bedford to Elizabeth: MS. Ibid. 2 you have could not be able to save you towards us.' ' At times she seemed to struggle with her ignominy, but it was only to flounder deeper into distraction and dishonour. Once she sent for the French ambassador: she told him that the Earl of Murray and his friends were in danger for her sake and through her means; the Queen of Scots was threatening their lives; and she swore she would aid them with all the means which God had given, and she would have all men know her determination. But the next moment, as if afraid of what she had said, she stooped to a deliberate lie. De Foix had heard of the 3000l., and had ascertained beyond doubt that it had been sent from the Treasury; yet when he questioned Elizabeth about it she took refuge behind Bedford, and swore she had sent no money to the lords at all.2 'It fears me not a little,' wrote Murray on the 21st, 'that these secret and covered pretendings of the Queen's Majesty there, as matters now stand, shall never put this cause to such end as we both wish, but open declaration would apparently bring with it no doubt.' 'If her Majesty will openly declare herself,' said Bedford, uncertain hearts will be determined again and all will go well,' 4 3 Paul de Foix himself, notwithstanding his knowledge of Elizabeth, was unable to believe that she would Elizabeth to Bedford, September 12: Scotch MSS. Rolls House. 2 De Foix to the Queen-mother, September 18: TEULET, vol. ii. persevere in a course so discreditable and so dangerous. So easy it would be for her to strike Mary Stuart down, if she had half the promptitude of Mary herself, that it seemed impossible to him that she would neglect the opportunity. As yet the party of the Queen of Scots had no solid elements of strength: Rizzio was the chief councillor; the Earl of Athol was the General-' a youth without judgment or experience, whose only merit was a frenzied Catholicism.'1 Catherine de Medici, who thought like de Foix, and desired to prevent Elizabeth from becoming absolute mistress of Scotland, sent over Castelnau de Mauvissière to mediate between the Queen of Scots and her subjects. But Mary Stuart understood better the temperament with which she had to deal; she knew that Elizabeth was thoroughly cowed and frightened, and that she had nothing to fear. She sent a message to Castelnau that she would allow neither France nor England to interfere between her and her revolted subjects; while her rival could only betake herself to her single resource in difficulty, and propose again to marry the Archduke. There was something piteous as well as laughable in the perpetual recurrence of this forlorn subject. She was not wholly insincere. When pushed to extremity she believed that marriage might become her duty, and she imagined that she was willing to encounter it. The game was a dangerous one, for she had almost exhausted the patience of her subjects, who might compel her at De Foix to the Queen-mother, September 18: TEULET, vol. ii. last to fulfil in earnest the hopes which she had excited. It would have come to an end long before had it not been that Philip, who was irresolute as herself, allowed his wishes for the marriage to delude him into believing Elizabeth serious whenever it was mentioned; while the desirableness of the Austrian alliance in itself, and the extreme anxiety for it among English statesmen, kept alive the jealous fears of the French. To de Silva the Queen appeared a vain, capricious woman, whose pleasure it was to see the princes of Europe successively at her feet; yet he too had expected that if her Scotch policy failed she would take the Archduke in earnest at last, and thus the value of the move was not yet wholly played away, and she could use his name once more to hold her friends and her party together. As a matter of course, when the Archduke was talked of on one side the French had their candidate on the other; and Charles the Ninth being no longer in question, Paul de Foix threw his interest on the side of Leicester. While the Queen of Scots was displaying the spirit of a sovereign and accomplishing with uncommon skill the first steps of the Catholic revolution, Elizabeth was amusing herself once more with balancing the attractions of her lover and the Austrian prince: not indeed that she any longer wished to marry even the favoured Lord Robert; 'If she ever took a husband,' she said to de Foix, 'she would give him neither a share of her power nor the keys of her treasury; her subjects wanted a successor, and she would use the husband's services to obtain such a thing; but under any aspect the thought of marriage was odious to her, and when she tried to make up her mind it was as if her heart was being torn out of her body.'1 Yet Leicester was fooled by the French into a brief hope of success. He tried to interest Cecil in his cause by assuring him that the Queen would marry no one but himself; and Cecil mocked him with a courteous answer, and left on record, in a second table of contrasts with the Archduke, his own intense conviction of Leicester's worthlessness.2 A ludicrous Court calamity increased the troubles of the Queen and with them her unwillingness to declare war against the Queen of Scots. The three daughters of the Duke of Suffolk had been placed one after the other in the line of succession by Henry the Eighth. Lady Jane was dead; Lady Catherine was dying from the effects of her long and cruel imprisonment; the third, Lady Mary, had remained at the Court, and one evening in August when the Scotch plot was thickening got herself married in the palace itself by an old fat priest in a short gown' to Thomas Keys the sergeant porter.3 Lady Mary was 'the smallest woman in the Court,' Keys 1 She said she was resolved'Ne departir jamais à celuy qui seroit son mary ni de ses biens ni forces ni moyens, ne voulant s'ayder de luy que pour laisser successeur d'elle à ses subjectz; mais quand elle pensoit de ce faire, il luy sembloit que l'on luy arrachast le cœur du ventre; tant elle en estoit de son naturel eslonguée.'-Paul de Foix to the Queen-mother, August 22: TEULET, vol. ii. 2 De Matrimonio Regina Angliæ.' Reasons against the Earl of Leicester Burghley Papers, vol. i. : 3 This marriage was before mentioned by me as having taken place at the same time with that of Lady Jane Grey and Guilford Dudley. I was misled by Dugdale. |