CHAPTER 8

MARY STUART QUEEN OF THE SCOTS

THE spring of the year 1559 marks a notable turning-point in European history. On April 2 the Treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis was signed by France and England, and on the following day by France and Spain. A great war was over. Italy had been freed from her invaders, Savoy had regained her independence, and Calais was lost to England for ever. But far more momentous changes than these were in progress. When the preliminaries of peace were under discussion at Cercamp, Mary Tudor was alive and England was united to the Church of Rome. Before the Treaty was concluded, Parliament was voting Elizabeth to be Supreme Governor of the Church in England, and substituting the Book of Common Prayer for the Mass. Elsewhere, Europe found herself in the face of new problems and a new order of things. Hitherto, as in England, the Reformation, where it was established, had arisen under the initiation or patronage of the sovereign power. Now, a religious movement of another kind, an aggressive militant Calvinism, springing from the people or from a malcontent aristocracy, and clamouring for civil as well as for religious liberty, had been coming to a head simultaneously in Scotland, France, and, in a less developed form, in the Spanish Netherlands. The revolutionary movement seemed contagious, and menaced the authority of the Crown as well as the established religion. It was the sense of this new danger insidiously creeping upon them which impelled the two Catholic Powers to seek for peace, and if possible for an alliance against the common foe, an alliance which was to be cemented by the marriage of Philip of Spain with the daughter of the King of France; and it was significant that the first article of the treaty between these Powers pledged them to bring about at once the convocation of a General Council "for the reformation and the reduction of the whole Christian Church to a true union and concord".

We are, then, on the eve of the Counter-Reformation, when a reformed Papacy and an unlooked-for revival of ecclesiastical zeal throughout the Roman Church were to come as a formidable aid to the political forces now to be arrayed against advancing Protestantism.

The task before Catholic Europe was the suppression of the threatened revolt in France, Scotland, and the Netherlands, and the dethronement of Elizabeth as a heretic and illegitimate usurper of the English throne. This last was most imperative of all, for it was already clear, and became clearer as time went on, that the form of religion established by the Queen of England would be a powerful support and encouragement to the struggling sects elsewhere. Yet at this moment England as a European Power was impoverished, humiliated, and helpless. The Queen's title was insecure; she was without a recognised heir; her Catholic subjects were in a numerical majority; and, moreover, there was an active pretender to her throne in the person of Mary Stewart, recently (1558) married to the Dauphin of France; and Mary's claims seemed irresistible in the eyes at least of those who looked rather to hereditary descent than to parliamentary title. It was very decidedly in the interests of both France and Spain that England should become Catholic. Would, then, these two Powers set aside their former jealousies and unite in placing Mary on the throne of the United Kingdom, or would either Power give a free hand to the other to act alone? This was the problem which agitated Christendom for nearly thirty years. Round the Queen of Scots, as the representative and symbol of regenerated Catholicism, the contest of diplomatic skill and force of arms raged with remarkable vicissitudes of fortune. The end found Elizabeth the acknowledged champion of Protestant Europe, no longer weak and despised, but snatching from Spain the sovereignty of the seas, and within sight of the long-coveted union of Scotland and England under a Protestant monarch. What was accomplished by Elizabeth through good means or bad in her long conflict with Mary and her supporters has remained intact almost to our own time. The chapter, then, which deals with this important phase of the Wars of Religion rightly bears the name of Mary Stewart. To understand the shifting policy, the conflicting interests and influences which moulded her career and finally led to her destruction, it is necessary to go back to the days of her infancy.

Victory of the Catholic party in Scotland [1544-54

Mary Stewart, from the moment of her birth (December 8, 1542), was destined to be a brand of discord. Henry VIII saw the fulfillment of his cherished dream of the union of England and Scotland in a marriage between the young Queen and his son Edward. He peremptorily demanded that the child should be sent into England at once, and under conditions which involved the immediate subjection of Scotland to the southern kingdom. Though these demands were rejected, the Regent, the pliable and at that time Protestant Arran, agreed by the Treaty of Greenwich (July 1, 1543), that Mary, when ten years old, should be placed in Henry's hands. But the King's overbearing and dictatorial tone so played into the hands of the dissatisfied party of Cardinal Beton and the Queen-mother that the Treaty was repudiated, and the alliance with France formally renewed. The English party seemed almost at an end. The horror, devastation, and plunder of an English invasion followed. National independence in Scotland became identified with the French alliance and the maintenance of the Roman Church. Yet so keen was the English desire for union that, when by French help there was prospect of the tide turning in favor of the Scots, Somerset opened negotiations with Huntly (January, 1548), and proposed that in three years the child should go into England; that Protestants in Scotland should have liberty of conscience; that the very names of England and English as well as Scotland and Scottish should be abolished, and that the two kingdoms henceforth should form one Empire, Great Britain, and the prince ruler thereof should be named the Emperor of Great Britain. But the distrust and hatred of the old enemy were too strong.

Six months later d'Esse, the French commander, laid before the Scottish Parliament at Haddington his master's desire of marrying Mary to the Dauphin; and on August 13 the Queen landed in France. The victory of Mary of Lorraine and the Catholic party seemed complete. The Protestant movement in Scotland had originated, as contemporary Catholic writers agree, in the revolt of a people, untaught and uncared for, against the idleness, cupidity, and scandalous lives of their clergy. The Church fell to pieces from its own internal decay, and Calvinism rushed into the vacuum created by the absence of all religion. The movement at a later time gathered outward strength by the accession of powerful nobles, eager to punish the delinquent clergy by appropriating their wealth. But it needed for ultimate success a single-minded and devoted leader, and a popular political motive. John Knox was to supply the first, and the ill-advised policy of Mary of Lorraine, or rather of her foreign counsellors, was eventually to give occasion for the second.

The violent character of the struggle in its earlier stages appears in the assassination of Cardinal Beton by a number of gentlemen, mainly in revenge for the martyrdom of Wishart, and in the choice of the austere and perfervid Knox as preacher by the congregation of these zealots, when he was confined with them in the Castle of St Andrew's. Beton was slain on May 29, 1548. Knox was carried away captive in the French galleys in August of the following year. While Beton lived the Church was still politically strong; for under his masterly guidance it represented the extreme patriotic resistance to the domination in England. In April, 1554, Arran, now Duke of Châtelhérault, reluctantly handed over the regency to Mary of Lorraine. A true Guise, ambitious for her daughter, yet of her own nature inclined to toleration, her fatal error was the attempt to govern Scotland by Frenchmen. The inevitable reaction set in. The old hostility to England rapidly gave way to a greater detestation of France as menacing to the liberties of the nation. French rule came to be identified with the rule of the Church. To the most strenuous part of the Scottish people national and religious freedom seemed one; and Knox, returning to Scotland for a while in 1555, organised Calvinistic Congregations, and convinced earnest and intelligent men, Erskine of Dun, Lord James Stewart, a natural son of James V, and the brilliant Maitland of Lethington, that it was their duty openly to resist idolatry. Under Knox's influence the Lords of the Congregation drew up their first bond or covenant, December 3, 1557; and the revolution became imminent. The Reformers demanded the free exercise of their religion; and the free exercise of this religion involved the suppression of the Mass as idolatry. Toleration on either side became impossible. Both sides fought for supremacy, and would be content with nothing short of it.

1555-9] Mary in France. Accession of Elizabeth

We now turn to the young Queen at the French Court. Her beauty, irresistible charm of manner, and intellectual gifts, made her a universal favorite. "She governs both the King and the Queen", said her uncle the Cardinal of Lorraine. While Scotland was being ruled by her mother in the interests of France, Mary herself became thoroughly French. In April, 1558, she learnt her first lesson in political duplicity. Commissioners arrived from Scotland to ratify the promises of France to support Châtelhérault's claim to the Crown, failing issue of her marriage, and to preserve inviolate the liberties and constitution of Scotland. Mary spoke to the deputies, said Diane de Poitiers, "not as an inexperienced child, but as a woman of age and knowledge". On April 4 she signed certain secret papers. In the first she made over Scotland as a free gift to the King of France in the case of her dying without issue; and in another she declared that, though, before or after her marriage, she might in compliance with the Scottish Parliament sign papers in a contrary sense, the preceding documents should be taken to declare her genuine mind.

On November 17, 1558, Elizabeth succeeded Mary Tudor. The Queen of Scots at once quartered the arms of England and Ireland. The Commissioners of Henry II at Cateau-Cambrésis derisively asked to whom France was desired to restore Calais, seeing that Mary Stewart and not Elizabeth was the lawful Queen of England; and Henry urged upon the Pope the immediate excommunication and deprivation of the usurper. The peril of Elizabeth was indeed great. Her safety at the moment, strange to say, appeared to depend entirely upon the self-interested friendship of the champion of Catholicism, Philip of Spain. Such strength as she possessed at home was in her character. The Spanish ambassador hinted that she owed her crown to Philip. She replied that she owed it to her people. She is very much wedded to her people", wrote Feria, "and thinks as they do". "She is incomparably more feared than her sister was". Philip, that he might preserve England to his Church, resolved "to do God a service", by marrying the Queen. Elizabeth refused him, and proceeded boldly with her ecclesiastical reforms. The King bade his ambassador make it his main object to prevent a rupture between the Catholics and Protestants, "as this is best for our interests", and would deprive the French of an excuse for interference. If the Catholics were strong, he might secretly aid them and give fair words to the heretics. Meanwhile Philip engaged himself to Elizabeth de Valois, the French King's daughter; and the Venetian Chifanoja reported from London that the Protestants were trembling at the alliance of the two most powerful Princes in the world, and called for their extirpation at the coming General Council. England was the "sick man of Europe", the phrase is Feria's, who promised to keep the sick man alive till Philip was ready to intervene. Yet, impatient with his master's policy of inaction, he repeatedly and indignantly reminded him of the "just claims of the Queen of Scots and the ease with which France could take possession of this miserable country". "For", he adds, "if the King of France gets this woman declared a heretic and bastard at Rome, how can your majesty go against God and justice and the Catholics, who will doubtless join France?" Philip could only reply that he had begged the Pope to hold his hand. Thus English Catholics did not stir, as they waited for the word from Spain.

The jealousy of France made Philip afraid to interfere. The Pope was prevented from speaking, while France thought it prudent to crush out Protestantism in Scotland and establish Mary's position there, before making a descent upon England.

The Protestant insurrection in Scotland [1558-9

It was, then, upon Scotland that all eyes were now fixed. In April, 1558, the burning of the old man Milne exasperated the Protestants beyond control. The death, in November, of Mary Tudor led them once more to look to England for friendship or support. On May 2, 1559, Knox returned to his country. "I see", he wrote, "the battle shall be great, and I am come, I praise my God, even in the brunt of the battle". On the 10th a summons from the Queen-Regent to certain defiant preachers to appear at Stirling was the signal for the gathering of their friends in force. Knox's famous sermon at Perth excited "the rascal multitude" to break images and to pull down religious Houses. The Regent took up arms. The Lords of the Congregation for a time got the upper hand and occupied Edinburgh, but soon found that they were quite unable to sustain a contest with the trained troops of France. They now appealed earnestly to England for aid. Elizabeth was in great perplexity. She disliked the political opinions of Knox and had little sympathy with his creed. How could she assist such rebels against lawful authority without encouraging her own recusants to do the same? Moreover, she was ill prepared to risk war with France. Yet to remain neutral would be to enable the French to master Scotland as a province of France and thence march to the conquest of England in support of Mary's claim.

On July 10, 1559, Francis II succeeded his father Henry II, and Mary wrote (so Throckmorton reported) that as she was now Queen of France and Scotland, so she trusted to be Queen of England also. The Guises became supreme in France, and Elizabeth's danger was the greater. Kirkcaldy of Grange was justified in his warning to Cecil: "If ye suffer us to be overthrown, ye shall prepare the way for your own destruction." Cecil understood this well. Elizabeth at length resolved to help the insurgents secretly with money, and to mass troops on the border, but if possible to avoid a rupture with France. No one was more keen for the English alliance, and the aid of English troops, than Knox. He implored the English to send from Berwick a thousand men to serve for wages, and so break no league with France; or if that excuse avail not, you may declare them rebels when once they are in our company." He and his friends wished to make their grievance one of religion only.

The Queen would not hear of religion. She would move only to defend the Scots from foreign tyranny and herself from invasion. To the remonstrances of Noailles, the French ambassador, she replied that it was the custom of her country to arm when her neighbours armed. The Queen of Scots had assumed her title and was aiming at her throne; and it was patent to all the world that the French preparations were directed against England through Scotland. In January, 1560, Elizabeth sent Winter with a fleet to the Firth with orders to pick a quarrel with the French, and so prevent their bringing reinforcements, but to do so on his own responsibility. With the extraordinary good luck which attended her at critical moments, the French fleet, while on its way to Scotland, was driven back or destroyed by storms.

In February she entered into a formal league with the Congregation, nominally in defence of the national liberties against French encroachments. Statesmen on the Continent were aghast at her audacity. They believed she was rushing to her ruin. "You will be torn in pieces", said Feria to Challoner, "and other princes will fall out about your garments". It now became an urgent question whether Philip should not anticipate the French by first occupying England himself. "If", wrote the Duchess of Parma to Philip, "the French establish themselves in Scotland, England is theirs; with England they will have the Low Countries. How then will it fare with Spain and the Indies?". "Spain," said Cardinal Granvella, "must defend London as it would Brussels". In the same strain Quadra, the new ambassador in London, wrote to Feria: "Either this country will fall to the French or we shall have to take up arms in the most ignominious and shameful cause which Christian prince ever sustained."

Meanwhile both English and French appealed to Philip. The King in his embarrassment sent de Glasion to England to insist on the Queen keeping the peace. He arrived in England on April 5, but too late. A few days previously Elizabeth had taken the decisive step of sending Lord Grey across the Border with an army to cooperate with the forces of the Congregation. The Tumult of Amboise (March 15) and the beginning of serious troubles with the Huguenots, following upon the disaster to her fleet, had crippled France; and thus Elizabeth had been emboldened to take stronger measures. In two months' time the French were driven, not by English or Scottish prowess, but by their own misfortunes, to send deputies into Scotland with full powers to negotiate terms of peace, the King and Queen giving their royal words to ratify all that should be settled by them.

Treaty of Edinburgh. Mary lands in Scotland [1560-1

The Treaty of Edinburgh was signed by the commissioners, July 6, shortly after the death of Mary of Lorraine (June 11). It was agreed that Mary, "seeing the Kingdoms of England and Ireland do belong by right to Elizabeth", should in all times coming abstain from the use of her title and arms. The foreign troops were to go, and the Scottish Parliament was to be held on August 1, to settle the affairs of religion; but the King and Queen were meanwhile to be advertised of this concession, and their adherence obtained. The Parliament was duly held, though no authorization came from Francis and Mary. The Calvinistic Confession of Faith was adopted, the papal jurisdiction abolished, and the saying or hearing of Mass prohibited, under the penalty of death for the third offence. The religious revolution was effected with scarcely a show of opposition from the prelates of the old Church.

Francis and Mary, humiliated by the unexpected turn of affairs in Scotland, refused to ratify the Treaty. The French troops had been withdrawn, and peace was reestablished. The refusal to ratify could therefore only mean that Mary maintained her pretensions to the English Crown, and so it was understood. On December 5 Francis died and was succeeded by his brother Charles. Mary was no longer Queen Regnant of France; Catharine de' Medici gained the upper hand; and the Guises lost their ascendancy. Disliked and suspected by Catharine, Mary for the moment had no home, no powerful party, no policy. The new Pope Pius IV sent her the golden rose, addressing her pathetically as "a rose among thorns". Overtures were now made for her return to her kingdom; and she placed herself, not perhaps without some misgivings, in the hands of her half-brother, the Lord James. Ambitious of power and wealth, but devoted to his creed and to the English alliance, Lord James Stewart was a statesman, shrewd, powerful, and yet moderate; and he might be expected to support his sister in everything except a conflict with England, or an attempt to overthrow the recent religious settlement in Scotland. Meanwhile Mary, to the increasing annoyance of Elizabeth, resolutely evaded every attempt to induce her to ratify the Treaty of Edinburgh.

Mary landed in Scotland, August 19, 1561. Her eyes were from the first fixed upon the English Succession, and her policy at home and abroad now seemed entirely subservient to that end. As matters stood, the parliamentary sanction given to the will of Henry VIII, the very settlement under which Elizabeth now reigned, excluded or passed over Mary's line in the succession. Her first step therefore must be to obtain from the English Parliament an acknowledgment of her natural right to succeed Elizabeth, failing heirs of her body. Mary had above all to conciliate the rival Queen. To make good her ground in her own kingdom, she must allay the suspicions of her Protestant subjects, gain their confidence, and let religious questions for the present lie dormant. For this purpose she could not have chosen a better Secretary of State than Maitland, "the Scottish Cecil", who, like her brother Lord James, was bent upon maintaining friendship with England, strongly supported her claim for recognition as next heir to the throne, and, though tolerant of the Queen's religious practices, was yet in the confidence of the leaders of the Kirk. On the other hand, knowing well that in the pursuit of her object, and especially in the event of open conflict, she would, apart from the aid of the Papacy and Catholic Princes, have mainly to rely on the strong latent body of Catholics in England, Mary found it politic to profess secretly to her foreign friends an ardent zeal for the Catholic cause, and to let them believe her ready to sacrifice her life in the attempt to restore the Church in her own or both kingdoms. Such protestations must not be taken too seriously. Mary had no idea of risking her position in Scotland by any premature display of zeal. Rather, it seems to have been her hope that she would gather round her in time a party strong enough to effect a change of religion by constitutional means. The Pope himself had reminded her of the example of Mary Tudor. Might not the Queen of Scots in her turn make a Spanish match? Within a few days after her arrival in Scotland the Queen issued a proclamation, forbidding under pain of death any attempt at an alteration of the existing arrangement regarding religion, until a final settlement should be made with the consent of her Estates. She however deferred calling a Parliament, evaded the petitions of the General Assembly, and left the Acts of 1560 unconfirmed. She refused to hand over to the ministers the incomes of the old clergy or the Church property which had fallen to laymen, but claimed for the Crown one-third of these revenues; and this third was to be equally divided between herself and the Protestant clergy. She thus kept in her own hands the means of effecting another change should the opportunity occur. Attempts to revive Catholic worship were promptly checked; and the papal envoy, de Gouda, then secretly in the country, reported that the Bishop of Dunkeld had been impeached before the Queen for making preparations to administer the sacrament at Easter, 1562, and had been compelled to desist by the Queen's command. At another time, forty-eight priests, including the Primate of Scotland, were by her authority thrown into prison for venturing to say mass in secret. Yet Mary would not for a moment tolerate an invasion of her own privileges, nor suffer her priests to be wantonly insulted. The ministers in vain petitioned for the abolition of mass in the royal chapel; and, when the Town Council of Edinburgh issued a decree in terms insulting to priests and nuns, Mary instantly deprived them of their offices and confined them in the Tolbooth.

The question of Mary's marriage [1561-3

Meanwhile, the Queen both amused her Court with the fashions and gaiety of France and attended seriously with her brother to affairs of State. She made progress through her dominions, put down the disorders of the border counties, kept a firm hand upon unquiet nobles, punished and got rid of the troublesome Bothwell, and, what is more surprising, marched with her Council to the north, and there humbled the powerful Earl of Huntly, who had aided his son Lord George Gordon in some resistance to the Queen's authority.

Mary, who never seemed in higher spirits, delighted in the campaign and left the leader of the Scottish Catholics dead on the field of Corrichie. But it was this same Huntly, who, by his desertion of the Royalists for the side of the Congregation at a critical moment in the struggle of 1559, had in the mind of Mary of Lorraine turned the scale against the Catholic cause. Thus by one act Mary gratified and enriched her brother, now created Earl of Moray, displayed her impartiality by punishing a professed Catholic, and revenged herself on a traitor. At the end of three years, the English ambassador could report, "the Queen is strictly obeyed, perfectly served, and honored by all"; and this after the imprudent conduct which lured Chastelard to the rash acts that cost him his life. She had indeed so managed that already her chief counsellors, Moray and Maitland, had drifted away from Knox and the extreme Protestant party. The Reformer himself, who found in her "a proud mind, a crafty wit and indurat heart", was the one rock which she in vain tried to move.

One of the grave political questions of Europe at this time was Mary's marriage. Was France to let the all-powerful Philip obtain control of her old ally, Scotland? Was Spain to submit without a struggle to the restoration of that connection with France which had just been so happily dissolved; and what match could be agreeable to Mary which was not dangerous to England? The first thought of Mary's uncles, and her own constant wish, had been an alliance with Don Carlos. This scheme was so ably resisted by the intrigues of Catharine de' Medici that it fell through before Mary left France. Mary herself seemed to remain passive. She wished first to win the coveted recognition of her right to the English Succession. She declared that she would only marry according to the Queen of England's good will, or she would even say pleasantly that she wished that one of them were a man, to make an end to all disputes, or that she would have no husband but Elizabeth. The Cardinal of Lorraine was soon busily negotiating with the imperial Court to match his niece with the Archduke Charles. With this project Mary was not well pleased; and she made it clear that the Archduke was not powerful enough to assist her in her schemes. For this reason, among others, she would not think of any Protestant Prince. Catharine now manoeuvred to obtain her hand for Charles IX, if she would but wait a year or two; and this project naturally alarmed Spain. The Don Carlos match was revived. Philip's ministers and ambassadors urged the magnificence of such a union, which would add to the Spanish Crown the British Islands, secure the friendship of the Guises and the tranquillity of the Netherlands, and in short "lead straight to universal monarchy". Elizabeth meanwhile let Mary know that any union with the House of Habsburg would be taken as a direct act of hostility; and Knox from the pulpit menaced with the Divine vengeance any such infidel marriage. Philip finally (in August, 1564), to the intense disappointment of Mary, abandoned the scheme on the nominal plea of Don Carlos' health, having probably discovered that his uncontrollable and lunatic son was an impossible instrument of diplomacy, and would not serve the end he had in view. But there was still another candidate in the field.

The Countess of Lennox had intended that her son, Lord Darnley, whose claim to the English Succession was next to that of Mary, and who had the advantage of being a naturalised Englishman, should marry the Queen of Scots. The English Catholics, staunch friends of the Lennox line, had not by any means unanimously regarded Mary's claims with favor so long as she was connected with France. They were too much subjected to Spanish influence. They had rather favoured the pretensions of young Darnley; and, if Mary was not to marry the Prince of Spain, what marriage could be more acceptable to the party than one with Darnley? It would excite no continental jealousies, introduce no foreigner into the government, and would be the best guarantee for the restoration of Catholicism and the Union of the Crowns. Elizabeth, who had set one suitor against another, while fearing all, had lastly proposed her own favourite Leicester. Mary would not have disregarded even this match, had it been attended with the recognition of her right of succession, but this she could never obtain. To accede to such a request would on the part of Elizabeth have been to cut the ground from under her own feet. It would, as the Spanish ambassador saw, manifestly have resulted in a rising of the English Catholics and the reintroduction of their religion by force.

Darnley met Mary at Wemyss (February, 1565). She was already favorably disposed towards him on political grounds, but she seems to have been smitten with love at the sight of the beardless youth whose handsome figure and elegant accomplishments concealed the vacuity of his mind and the viciousness of his character. Castelnau, the French envoy, who was witness of the love-making, declares her infatuation to have been so great that it was set down to magic. But the political motive was uppermost. Thwarted on every side, Queen Mary at length determined to make her own choice. By her bold and independent move Elizabeth was outwitted. The "long lad" (as she said to the French ambassador) was but a pawn in the game, but a pawn which threatened her with checkmate. She became seriously alarmed. A recent enquiry had shown that there were not Protestant gentry enough in England to supply the vacancies in the office of justice of the peace. The Privy Council (May 1 and June 4) denounced the proposed match as injurious to the interests of the country. In Scotland Mary had obtained the consent of a convention of her nobles. But Moray, although he had been ostensibly able to approve the Spanish match, now foresaw the Queen's emancipation from the control of the Protestant lords and the loss of his own influence. He drew once more towards Knox and the irreconcilable clerical party, entered into a bond with Argyll and Châtelhérault for the defence of religion, and in July was making preparation for revolt. The General Assembly had already (June 25) assumed a more actively hostile attitude towards Catholics, and demanded the compulsory attendance of all at Protestant worship. Elizabeth, who had offered to tolerate Mary's marriage with Darnley, if she would conform to the religion of the country, now encouraged the malcontents with money and promises of military aid.

Mary marries Darnley. Moray driven out [1565-6

On July 29 Mary publicly celebrated her marriage. Her opportunity had come. The first overt act of aggression had been on the side of her opponents. She was confronted with insurrection within her kingdom and with invasion from England. She acted with vigor, issued proclamations declaring her innocence of making any alteration in religion, solicited aid from the Pope and King of Spain, obtained money from the latter, and again assured the Pope that she and her husband would defend the Catholic faith to the utmost of their power. She recalled Bothwell, whom she made Lieutenant-general of the Southern Marches, restored George Gordon to his father's dignities, and took the Catholic Atholl to her counsels. She marched armed at the head of the troops to meet the insurgents with such alacrity that Moray and his friends, without risking a conflict, fled early in October into England, leaving her mistress of the situation. Elizabeth, seeing the weakness of the insurgents, dared not openly intervene. Castelnau let her know that, if she crossed the border, France would be bound to come to Mary's aid. The King of Spain was for the first time making a decided move in her favor. When Moray therefore appeared before Elizabeth in London, she, in the presence of the French ambassador, reprimanded him for his rebellion and disavowed all sympathy with his action.

Mary was now bent on the ruin of her opponents. In answer to Castelnau's appeal for leniency she declared she would rather lose her Crown than forgo her revenge on Moray. A Parliament was summoned for March 12, 1566, when she was resolved that the rebels should be forfeited; and then, as she admitted to Archbishop Beton, she hoped "to have done some good anent restoring the old religion." Her triumph certainly seemed within her grasp. It was now nearly six years since the revolution which had set up Protestantism in Scotland. Very different indeed was the position of Catholicism from what it then had been. The Council of Trent had been brought to a close at the end of 1563; and one immediate outcome of the new sense of unity and moral strength imparted to the Papacy was a desire on the part of Pius IV, the Cardinal of Lorraine, the Emperor, and Philip of Spain to form a league of the Catholic Powers for the suppressing of Protestantism everywhere. If conflicting temporal interests prevented this league from taking definite shape, the idea and the wish were there. France too had recovered from her first Civil War, in which the Catholics had shown their superior strength; and Catharine was once more in friendly relations with the Guises. In 1564 she had contrived the conference at Bayonne with her daughter, the Queen of Spain, the Duke of Alva, and the representatives of the Pope; and it was well-nigh universally, though erroneously, believed that the contemplated league had then been actually signed and that Mary had secretly joined it. The situation was such as unduly to raise the hopes of the one side and to inspire the other with the deepest suspicion and animosity.

1564-6] The murder of Riccio

But the marriage which had promised to be the beginning of Mary's triumph was destined to be one of the main causes of her ruin. Before many months had passed, Darnley neglected his wife and disgusted her with his low vices. His vanity prompted him to covet the Matrimonial Crown, an increase to his power and right which Mary prudently refused. This refusal Darnley attributed to David Riccio, the Queen's private secretary. This man, a Piedmontese and a zealous Catholic, had occupied a humble position in her household and assisted in her choir. The unusual confidence and familiarity with which the Queen treated him, his arrogance and assumption of authority, made him an object of jealousy and suspicion to the nobles. The Protestant party especially regarded him as the promoter of Catholic intrigues and the chief obstacle to the progress of reform. He was even believed to be in the pay of the Pope and the secret correspondent of Philip II. Of any such correspondence or intrigue there is however no evidence. His name even seems to have been unknown to Philip. That he influenced Mary's policy is most probable; and Darnley was moreover induced to believe or to assert that "that villain David" had dishonored his bed. He became the leader of a plot to put the favorite to death. A bond was entered into, signed by the King, Ruthven, and Morton, to slay Riccio as an enemy of the State; and in another bond the fugitive lords, Moray, Argyll, Glencairn and others in England, undertook to stand by Darnley, to procure him the crown-matrimonial, and to maintain the Protestant religion; while in return they were to receive pardon and restoration to their honors. On the evening of Saturday, March 9,1566, three days before the appointed Parliament, the assassins, accompanied by Darnley himself, dragged their victim from the side of the Queen, to whom he clung, and despatched him with some fifty blows, leaving the King's dagger in his body. Huntly and Bothwell with a few other friends of Mary made their escape, while she found herself a prisoner in the hands of the conspirators. Quickly recovering from her first movement of terror, she skilfully detached the weak Darnley from the rest, temporised with her captors, welcomed Moray, who now suddenly reappeared, and exclaimed: "Ah, my brother, if you had been here you never would have suffered me to be thus cruelly handled." She then slipped away, galloped with Darnley to Dunbar, summoned her lieges, and once more compelled her enemies to fly across the border. The murder of Riccio, "an action worthy of all praise" in the mind of Knox, was, however, the deathblow to Mary's schemes. "All the wise ordinances" (wrote de Silva, now Spanish ambassador in London) "made by the good Queen with regard to religion have been upset, and it will be difficult to establish them again". The Bishop of Dunblane was on his way to Rome, conveying to Pius V the obedience and submission of the King and Queen and their earnest request for aid, when the news of the disaster reached him. He could only pray the Pope to excuse the Queen from attempting any alteration at present. The enthusiastic Pope praised in conclave this "woman with a man's heart", granted her 20,000 crowns, and commissioned Laureo, Bishop of Mondovi, to go into Scotland as his Nuncio, declaring that if possible he would go himself in person and gladly spend his blood and life in her service.

Mary now reverted to a policy of conciliation. Moray returned to her councils together with Atholl, Huntly, and Bothwell; and she even tried to win the good-will of the ministers by making better provision for their maintenance. Once more matters went smoothly for a while. On Wednesday, June 19, the Queen gave birth to her son James. Her position in England was thus greatly strengthened. She renewed her protestations of loyalty to Rome, and promised to bring up the child as a Catholic, while she invited Elizabeth to be his godmother, and opened negotiations with her for the recognition of her own rights and those of her son. Elizabeth with difficulty avoided a serious quarrel with both Houses of Parliament by her refusal to discuss either the matter of the succession or her own marriage. Instinctively, she saw that her security lay in remaining as she was, yet free to use any proposal of marriage as a convenient political instrument. Her best advisers, moreover, recognised that to name Mary as her successor would be to seal her own doom.

Never was the Queen of Scots to outward appearance held in higher respect than in the autumn of this year. Du Croc, the French ambassador, wrote: "I never saw the Queen so much beloved, esteemed and honored, nor so great harmony amongst her subjects". Week after week de Silva reported to his master that all was well in Scotland. There was but one cloud in the horizon. The strained relations between Mary and her husband were notorious. She had been at first deceived by him as to his share in the Riccio outrage. His confederates, who were one by one being brought back to favor by the entreaties of Moray and the counsel of the French envoys, enraged at their previous desertion and betrayal by Darnley, laid before the Queen proofs of his treachery and baseness which produced in her the bitterest resentment. Her trouble was the main cause of an illness which brought her to death's door at Jedburgh. Maitland wrote to the Archbishop of Glasgow, October 14. "It is a heart-break for her to think that he could be her husband, and how to be free of him she sees no outlet." She cried in her grief, "I could wish to be dead" (so Du Croc reported); and de Silva, much distressed, wrote to Rome in the hope that the Pope might effect a reconciliation. Meanwhile Mary had been much thrown with Bothwell, who won her admiration by all those qualities which stood in boldest contrast with those of her effeminate husband. He was an able and courageous soldier, a man of barbaric loyalty, faithful almost alone to Mary's mother, a persistent enemy of England, and now the Queen's staunchest adherent. Although he was an evil liver and an unbending Protestant, de Silva could write of him, when Bothwell was thought to have died of his wounds at Hermitage, "The Queen has lost a man whom she could trust, and of such she has but few." He was now through Mary's own acts her most powerful subject, and his ambition was boundless. Early in December took place the eventful Conference at Craigmillar, between Moray, Maitland, Bothwell, Huntly, and Argyll. Maitland proposed to Mary that she should obtain a divorce from her husband. She refused on the ground that the dissolution of her marriage would bastardise her son. Bothwell argued the point, and Maitland begged her to leave the question of how to get rid of Darnley in the hands of her nobles. "Moray", he said, "would look through his fingers." Finally "she willed them to do nothing by which any spot might be laid on her honor or conscience." The inevitable bond was now drawn up. After the baptism of James at Stirling (December 17) Darnley, who felt himself slighted and had declined to be present, retired to his father at Glasgow, where he fell ill with small-pox. Rumors reached Mary that he and his father had been plotting mischief; and on January 20, 1567, she wrote to the Archbishop of Glasgow complaining bitterly of her husband and his inquisitorial spying upon her movements. On that day, or the next, however, she visited the sick man at Glasgow with the intention of bringing him back to Craigmillar. It was safer for her that he should be under her own eye. But at this point every word spoken and every movement of the chief personages in the history are the subject of controversy. We know at least that Darnley pleaded for forgiveness, and desired to live with his wife again. Since he disliked Craigmillar as a residence, and there would be danger of infection to the infant Prince at Holyrood, Mary brought him to Kirk o' field by the walls of Edinburgh. Here she visited him daily and slept in a room beneath his own. On the evening of February 9 she left him suddenly to attend a wedding of a servant at Holyrood. About two o'clock in the night an explosion took place at Kirk o' field, and Darnley's dead body was found, untouched, however, by gunpowder, in the garden at some yards' distance from the house.

Mary carried by Bothwell to Dunbar [1567

There could be no doubt whose deed it was. Placards on the city walls, and voices in the night, proclaimed Bothwell and his friends as the murderers. The question in everybody's mouth was, had the Queen any part in the crime? Suspicions which naturally arose were confirmed by her strange conduct. She acted as if her main endeavor was to evade enquiry and shield the culprit. She seemed to have lost all energy and discretion. Her best friends were amazed at her indifference and inaction. Archbishop Beton wrote to her plainly what was said of her complicity, and implored her to see that justice was done; otherwise it were better that she lost life and all. Morette, the ambassador of Savoy, who had just come from Edinburgh, could not conceal from de Silva his suspicions that the Queen had known of and consented to the plot. The Catholics in England were divided, and all were disheartened.

Meanwhile the reputed murderer, who with Huntly had charge of the infant Prince, acted as Mary's chief counselor, kept up a close intimacy with her, received from her fresh grants of place and power and costly presents. The Queen evaded the demands of Lennox that the accused should be arrested, and finally appointed April 12 for the trial of Bothwell, at which not the Crown but Lennox was to be the prosecutor. In default of prosecutor and witnesses, Bothwell was acquitted; for he had filled the city with his troops, and Lennox had not dared to appear. In the Parliament which followed, Bothwell was further honored; and on the day on which it closed (April 19) he entertained the chief nobles at supper, and there induced them to sign a bond affirming his innocence and recommending him to marry the Queen. Four days later at Stirling Mary saw her son's face for the last time; on the next day she was waylaid on her road to Edinburgh by Bothwell, and carried with Maitland to Dunbar.

News of the intended capture had leaked out before it took place. De Silva reported to Philip that "it was believed the whole thing had been arranged". Murmurs had been already heard against the contemplated marriage with a man whose wife was living. Mary could not possibly hope to gain the consent of Spain, of France, or of the Pope to a match with a heretic and profligate a match which would wreck all the hopes of the Counter-Reformation; nor could Bothwell, the most bitter enemy of England, be acceptable to Elizabeth. For Mary's own security the show of violence and the hurry seemed necessary. While she was at Dunbar on April 26 the new Commissary Court commenced proceedings for the divorce at the instance of Lady Jane Gordon, Bothwell's wife, on the ground of his admitted adulteries; and on the 27th a suit was instituted before the restored Court of Archbishop Hamilton for the annulment of the same marriage on the ground of consanguinity, an impediment for which the Archbishop had himself, as apostolic legate, given the requisite dispensation ten months before Mary entered Edinburgh with Bothwell on May 3. The Protestant minister, John Craig, publicly protested against the banns which he was compelled to proclaim; and Mary's confessor warned her that the marriage could not and ought not to be. On the 12th she solemnly declared before the Court of Session her freedom from restraint, and early in the morning of the 15th she was married according to the Protestant rite by the once Catholic Bishop of Orkney. Eight days later she renewed her proclamation of 1561 against any alteration in the religion then standing, and annulled any privilege or license ever granted to the contrary. Catholic Europe was in despair at the depths to which their favorite had fallen. The Bishop of Dunblane in vain pleaded at the Court of France that the marriage was brought about by destiny rather than by free choice. His excuses were contemptuously rejected. The Venetian ambassador, Correro, felt that the Catholic religion had now no hope of ever again raising its head in Scotland. De Silva was alienated and distrustful. The Bishop of Mondovi had returned to Italy, recalled by the Pope. His mission had been a failure. He had never been allowed to set foot in Scotland. From Paris he had proposed to the Queen, as a test of her sincerity and as a sovereign remedy for her evils, that she should cut off the heads of six of her chief councilors, including Moray and Lethington. Mary had resolutely refused to do anything of the kind; yet the Nuncio still entertained some hope that another papal mission might be more successful. On receipt of the news of the Bothwell marriage this shadow of a hope vanished. "With this last act, so dishonorable to God and herself," he wrote to the Cardinal Secretary of State, " the propriety of sending any sort of envoy ceases. One cannot as a rule expect much from those who are subject to their pleasures." Mary's best apologists could only attribute her blind passion to love potions administered by Bothwell.

Abdication of Queen Mary [1567-8

In Scotland the revulsion of feeling was almost universal. A sense of shame at the national disgrace and degradation of their sovereign, fear and hatred of Bothwell, a dread of the consequences of their own acts or the opportunity arising from the moment of Mary's greatest weakness, united all parties in a call to arms and to a revolution of which the projectors did not foresee the end. To punish the murderer of the King, to free the Queen from the thraldom of a disgraceful marriage, to protect the young Prince whose life seemed in jeopardy, these were among the avowed objects of the confederates. The Hamiltons, the next claimants to the throne after James, suspicious of the Lennoxes and of the ambition of Moray, almost alone gave a self-interested adherence to the Queen. Bothwell fled from Borthwick Castle, in which he had taken refuge, and was quickly followed by Mary in man's clothes. On June 15 they were side by side at Carberry Hill with their troops. Du Croc, an eye-witness, describes her eagerness to fight, her fear of risking Bothwell in the duel proposed in lieu of battle, her acceptance of the condition that he should be allowed to escape, and her trusting herself to the hands of the confederate army by which she was led captive to Edinburgh, and thence, on the ground of her refusal to abandon Bothwell, to her prison at Lochleven. The next step of the confederates was a difficult one. If she had consented to a divorce from Bothwell, many would have been willing to restore the government to her. But she acted as if passionately attached to her husband; and severer counsels prevailed. Knox, who had retired from the country since the Riccio murder, now reappeared on the scene. In a General Assembly held on June 25 the voice of the Church was heard with effect. The Queen was herself now denounced from the pulpit as a murderess; and the populace clamored for her trial and punishment. On July 16 she was roughly compelled, the alternative'being certain death, to sign a deed of abdication and to nominate Moray, then absent in France, as Regent. On the 29th the young James was crowned King by the Bishop of Orkney, Knox preaching the sermon. The revolution was complete. It was an act of defiance to the Catholic sovereigns and to the Queen of England. The Protestant party was acting for the first time with stern independence. Elizabeth's efforts on behalf of Mary were unavailing; and it was clearly intimated to Throckmorton, the English ambassador, that any act of intervention on her part would be the signal for Mary's execution.

Now, if ever, it would seem, was the opportunity for the Catholic Powers to come to Mary's aid. But so low had she fallen in the estimation of her foreign friends that all looked coldly on her misfortunes. Moreover, France was entering upon another civil war, and her hands were full. Charles IX, at least, thought more of securing the Scottish alliance than of saving the Queen. His envoys were instructed to bear in mind that the desired alliance was not with this or that Prince, but with the established government. The main object was, as always, to detach Scotland from England. Spain, too, was busy with the outbreak in the Netherlands. Alva's army of 10,000 veterans was marching from Italy to crush the revolt. But twelve months later, when appealed to for help, Philip replied that he was not sufficiently informed and could give his ambassador no instructions but to work for the good of religion; while, worst of all, Pius V, Mary's staunchest friend, believed himself duped, and would have nothing to do with her (July, 1567); and his Secretary of State, even so late as August, 1568, explained to the Nuncio of Madrid that "his Holiness is not well resolved in his mind which of the two Queens is the better." In strange contrast with this virtual abandonment of Mary's cause by her natural allies was the attitude of Elizabeth. For once she felt genuine sympathy with her rival. She protested against the unwarrantable infringement of the rights of sovereigns, refused to acknowledge James, and made rash and impolitic offers to Mary of friendship and of help if need should be. The need came, and the help was claimed, in an unexpected manner. On May 2, 1568, after ten months of confinement in Lochleven, Mary effected her escape. She revoked her abdication, and asked her lawyers how she could obtain her restoration. They replied, by Parliament or by battle. "By battle let it be," she answered. Joined by the Hamiltons and others she met Moray at Langside, fled defeated from the battlefield, and on the 16th crossed the Solway into England.

Yet the Queen came not as a suppliant craving refuge, but buoyant, defiant, burning to renew the struggle and "to chastise her false accusers". She expected to be sent back by Elizabeth's troops in triumph to her throne. She demanded to be admitted to the Queen's presence. Sir Francis Knollys, who was sent to visit her at Carlisle, was fascinated by her eloquent tongue, discreet head, and the "stout courage which made pain and peril pleasant for victory's sake". "What is to be done with such a lady and such a Princess?" he asked. Elizabeth's embarrassment was great. Her first impulse was to receive Mary with the honor due to a sovereign; but Cecil and the Protestant party in her council were more far-seeing. Was Elizabeth to break with her former friends and by force of arms restore to Protestant Scotland a Catholic Queen who would use her first opportunity to snatch at the English Crown, her pretensions to which she had never abated? Or was Mary as an alternative to be permitted to cross over to France and there renew the situation of 1559, and with the aid of the Guises become a perpetual menace to England? While Mary had been shut up in Lochleven, Alva was threatening that, after crushing the Netherlands, he would cross over to France with his victorious army and there complete the annihilation of the Huguenots. England's turn would surely come next; and what hope would there be for England and the Reformation if Mary's hands were not kept tied, and the alliance with the Scottish Protestants were not maintained?

Yet to detain Mary in England without some plausible ground might be as perilous as to set her free. Elizabeth's first object was to gain time, and meanwhile to keep Mary out of mischief. She found it therefore inconsistent with her honor to receive the Scottish Queen until she had proved herself innocent of her husband's murder; and step by step Mary was inveigled into submitting to some sort of conference or indirect adjudication upon her cause, in the course of which Elizabeth was to call upon Moray to justify his rebellion. Moray, on his part, was led to believe that the result of the enquiry would certainly be to confirm his sister's deposition; while Mary herself was told that in any case she would be restored upon reasonable conditions and without dishonor.

Conference at York. Mary and her accusers [1568

The famous Conference was to be held at York. Norfolk, known to be a friend of Mary, was, with the Earl of Sussex, the Chief Commissioner, on Elizabeth's side. Lesley, the Bishop of Ross, and Lord Herries were the principal advisers of Mary; and Maitland, who accompanied Moray, also gave her secret assistance. Moray came prepared with the mysterious Casket Letters, purporting to contain in Mary's own handwriting damning evidence of her having lured Darnley to his doom, together with her contract of marriage with Bothwell in Huntly's hand, signed by herself and by Bothwell before his acquittal of the murder. But Moray was fearful of taking a false step by producing evidence, which, if not fatal to Mary, would surely be fatal to himself; and, having had bitter experience of Elizabeth's caprice, he was doubtful whether she might not yet restore Mary in spite of the Casket. Others also were implicated in the crime, and the consequences of opening the letters could scarcely be foreseen. A sight of the documents, or rather of an English translation of them, was furtively procured for Mary by Maitland. She implored him, according to Lesley's confession, "to stay these rigorous proceedings." He accordingly worked in her interests for some compromise.

Moray, frightened by Norfolk, finally made a feeble defence, and said nothing of the Casket or the murder. Meanwhile other intrigues had been carried on; and Elizabeth, fearing to be baulked of her advantage, removed the Conference to Westminster. Here (November 25) the proceedings, in spite of Mary's protests and withdrawal of her Commissioners, assumed undisguisedly the character of a trial, not of Moray for rebellion, but of the Queen for murder. Lennox appeared as an accuser of Mary; Moray produced the letters; and evidence was heard. Elizabeth took care that the contents of the Casket should be seen by the chief English lords favorable to Mary, including Northumberland and Westmorland. Her purpose was already sufficiently gained. It was no one's interest to push matters to an extremity. No satisfactory judicial examination of the documents ever took place. Even Mary's just demand to have sight of the originals was refused. Knollys was sent to induce her to avoid further trouble by confirming her abdication. This, after brief consideration, she absolutely refused to do. She would die a Queen. Then came the impotent conclusion of the whole. Elizabeth sent the Regent Moray back to Scotland, solemnly pronouncing that nothing had been brought against him and his party that compromised their honor and loyalty; nor, on the other hand, had anything been shown against the Queen, their sovereign, by which the Queen of England should conceive an evil opinion of her. Mary nevertheless, with her name sufficiently besmirched, remained a prisoner.

The Casket Letters now disappear from history. The question of their genuineness is beset with difficulties which in the absence of the originals it may be now impossible ever to solve. The casket was discovered upon one of Bothwell's servants, June 20, 1567. The earliest references to the form and contents of the documents which it contained are contradictory or inaccurate. On their evidence, however, the Scottish Parliament on December 15, 1567, declared Mary to be guilty of murder and to have forfeited her Crown. The tendency of recent discovery and research, rendering at least no longer tenable certain positions maintained by former opponents of their genuineness, is to suggest a large foundation of Mary's actual writing craftily altered or interpolated. This inference, based upon both internal and external evidence, would also explain in some measure Mary's manifest desire rather to keep the letters out of sight than to attempt the demonstration of their falsity to the ruin of her accusers. The hesitation or silence of Mary's supporters points to the same conclusion. Morton, in his declaration at Westminster (December 29, 1568), first published in full in 1889, asserted that the letters were examined on the morning after their discovery, in the presence of Atholl and Semple, both Catholics, as well as of Hume and others who had joined Mary's side, besides Maitland himself, who would be a most competent judge of their validity. It is strange that none came forward to dispute the facts alleged; strange that Huntly did not deny his writing of Mary's contract of marriage with Bothwell; strange, too, that, if the letters were forged, there should remain no clue to the forger or to the date at which such forgery was accomplished.

The interest of the letters is, however, mainly biographical. If rejected as forgeries, they leave the question of Mary's innocence or guilt just as it was when the friendly Du Croc, who knew the Queen and all the circumstances well, reported to the French Court that "the unhappy facts are too well proved." If genuine, they would exhibit Mary as something far worse than an ill-used wife conniving at the murder of a worthless husband who threatened to be her ruin. The letters had no effect upon international politics. The revolution at home was virtually effected before the discovery of the Casket. The judgment of foreign Courts was formed independently of its disclosures.

Norfolk's scheme of marriage with Mary [1568-9

There were statesmen in England who, like the Earl of Sussex, saw clearly from the first that the retention of Mary was a political necessity. Her long captivity and the tragedy which closed her life were, indeed, the acts of the English nation, not of a rival Queen. Elizabeth herself, ever irresolute and waiting upon events, soon (May, 1569) entered upon negotiations, sincere enough at the outset, for her restoration to Scotland. But the dominant party in that country had something to say in the matter. Moray with a strong hand had reduced his sister's partisans to submission; and in a convention called by him at Perth (July 25) Elizabeth's proposals, as she now probably hoped or intended, were utterly rejected. But, while the door was thus closed to Mary in her own kingdom, she was surprised at the strength of the party growing up in her favour in England. In the ten years which elapsed since Elizabeth's succession the hopes entertained from her policy of compromise had hardly been realised. The Catholic majority of her subjects had by no means been reconciled. They were indeed without ecclesiastical leaders, without a definite policy, apparently crushed and helpless; but latent among them was a formidable power which at any moment might be evoked by favorable circumstances. There were divisions, too, within the Queen's Council. When she ascended the throne she had instinctively made her choice of Sir William Cecil (created Lord Burghley in 1571) as her chief secretary. Cecil was her mainstay in both home and foreign affairs. As if conscious of her own weakness and vacillation, and of the fact that her own private sentiments in religious and other matters were often opposed to those which her better judgment approved for the national welfare, she leant upon the strong man to keep her straight. With Cecil, she introduced into her Council Cecil's brother-in-law, Sir Nicolas Bacon, as Keeper of the Great Seal, Francis Russell, Earl of Bedford, and others favoring the Reformation. On the other hand, her personal favorite, and for many years her evil genius, was Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester. The Council became divided between friends and enemies of Cecil. The country at large was exasperated by the Queen's refusal to marry; and the dread of a disputed succession drove men on all sides to look favourably on the claims of Mary Stewart, and to forget her past delinquencies.

Such was the condition of affairs at the moment when, in spite of a significant warning from Elizabeth, the Duke of Norfolk was secretly aiming at a marriage with the imprisoned Queen. A strong conservative party, attached to the old alliance with Spain, hostile to Cecil and to the advanced Protestants, and desirous of settling the Succession by Act of Parliament upon Mary, supported Norfolk's project as the best guarantee of peace, while the Catholics were led to expect the Duke's conversion and the restoration of their faith. Yet it could scarcely be expected that Elizabeth's very natural opposition to the marriage of a subject with a claimant to her throne, for such Mary continued to be, could be overcome without a revolution; and revolt would not have been thought of but for the changed relations between England and Spain.

Don Guerau d'Espes, who had taken the place of the more prudent and moderate de Silva (September, 1568), was instructed by Philip warmly to espouse the cause of the Catholics. His zeal outran that of his master. Since the peace of Cateau-Cambrésis there had been on the part of the great Powers a dread of provoking a general war. A diplomacy characteristic of the age was the result. While open war was avoided, each sovereign acted as if he were in secret alliance with one of the conflicting religious parties into which the rival State was divided. Ambassadors were intended to play the part of spies or conspirators in the country to which they were credited. D'Espes accordingly set himself to intrigue with the malcontent subjects of Elizabeth, as her agents had done with the Calvinists of Scotland or the Huguenots of France. He at once reported to Philip that it would be easy to release the Queen of Scots and to raise a revolt against Elizabeth. But before long he became confident that the King of Spain, as legitimate successor of Edward III, could subject the country by his own efforts; and in every dispatch, to the alarm of Alva, who feared for Mary's life if such rash projects should be disclosed, he plied his master with arguments and motives for the invasion of England. Many Catholics, he said, had declared they would flock to the King's standard. Norfolk and Arundel were ready to declare themselves his. Mary had sent a message that, if Philip would but help, she would be Queen of England in three months, and Mass should be said all over the country. She urged the French Ambassador also to bid her friends act for her now or never. The Earls of Northumberland and Westmorland, the Lords Lumley, Mowbray, Dacre and others were in the conspiracy.

Elizabeth excommunicated. Mary's hopes [1569-72

While these secret intrigues were being carried on, England's diplomatic relations with Spain were strained almost to the point of open rupture by the daring conduct of Elizabeth. She had seized the Spanish treasure-ships, which had taken refuge in English harbors when on the way to the Netherlands carrying gold for the payment of Alva's troops, and had appropriated or borrowed the money. D'Espes incited Alva to make reprisals; the Pope urged him to action. But Philip's Council, agreeing with Alva himself, decided that it was unwise to break openly with Elizabeth at this moment. While the King was slowly making up his mind to encourage with money and secret favor the Catholics of the north and to help those of Ireland to take up arms against the heretics and deliver the Crown to Mary, Elizabeth had laid hands on Norfolk, and the northern Earls were being hurried into rebellion (November 14, 1569). Westmorland and Northumberland were summoned to Court. Making evasive excuses, they gathered their forces in haste. There was indecision in their counsels. Some of their adherents held back from scruples as to the legitimacy of the rebellion without more definite instructions from Rome. Others wished to see first the promised Spanish gold or Spanish soldiers. Nor was it clear whether the insurgents demanded no more than a change in Elizabeth's policy and the restoration of Catholicism, or whether they aimed at the deposition of the Queen and the substitution of Mary Stewart.

On November 14, with 1700 horse, and 4000 foot, the Earls entered Durham, heard mass in the Cathedral, and publicly burnt the Book of Common Prayer and the English Bible. Six days later they were at Tadcaster, contemplating a dash at Tutbury for the release of Mary. Baffled by the precautions taken by Elizabeth and the removal of her captive to Coventry, disheartened by the want of funds, while Philip characteristically was promising immediate aid "if they should keep the field", threatened by the Earl of Sussex who, as President of the North, was advancing against them with an army largely recruited from Catholics, the Earls retreated northwards; and their forces melted away without risking an engagement. Three months later, Leonard Dacre, a more skillful and dangerous leader, who had hitherto acted as if he were on the Queen's side, threw off the mask, fortified Haworth, and with 3000 men sought to entrap Lord Hunslow, who marched against him with inferior forces. Dacre was however defeated at the battle of the Gelt, and made his escape for a time, as the Earls had done before him, into Scotland. Elizabeth's vengeance was swift and cruel. Gallows were erected on almost every village-green within the area of the rising; and Sussex himself reports that the number of his victims was between six and seven hundred.

The complete collapse of this ill-prepared and ill-supported rebellion did not, however, free Elizabeth from grave anxiety. It was clear that Philip was but biding his time. The Pope, who had egged on the northern Earls, was bestirring himself. The French King, again victorious over the Huguenots, was preparing to assist the Queen of Scots, when, to the deep sorrow of Elizabeth and the unconcealed joy of his sister, the Regent Moray was struck down by an assassin (January, 1570). A fierce civil war broke out in Scotland. Dumbarton and Edinburgh Castles were becoming in effect outposts in the great international war of religion which was raging round Antwerp or La Rochelle. The partisans of Mary, now comprising Maitland, Kirkcaldy, and the greater part of the barons, if left to themselves might well have gained the ascendancy. In February Pius V, without consulting Philip, issued his long-premeditated Bull, excommunicating Elizabeth and absolving her subjects from their allegiance. It was the supreme effort of the Counter-Reformation. Elizabeth had good ground for alarm. She quickly despatched troops into Scotland, by her influence secured the Regency for the Earl of Lennox (July, 1570), and in fear of France resumed at Chatsworth negotiations for Mary's restoration. Mary even agreed to ratify the Treaty of Edinburgh, to send her son as a hostage to England, and never to marry without Elizabeth's consent. Such conditions were calculated to ensure the failure of the negotiation. France, Spain, and the Scots, as before, made objections; and Mary's hopes, raised to the highest point, were again doomed to disappointment.

But at the moment when the Catholic Powers were most free to act, and the oft-threatened coalition seemed imminent, a change came over the international relations of France which cast to the winds whatever substance there had been in the Bayonne Conference, lifted England from her isolation in Europe, and gave to her a new political importance. France, fearful of Spanish aggrandizement, veered towards her ancient enemy, and in the teeth of the recent Bull was projecting a union between the excommunicated Queen and the Duke of Anjou, the brother of King Charles, a negotiation which through the skill of Cecil, now Lord Burghley, led shortly to the treaty of alliance, defensive and offensive, between England and France, concluded at Blois, April 29, 1572. This alliance was intended to protect England from invasion even in the cause of religion.

1571-2] The Ridolfi conspiracy. Execution of Norfolk

In 1559 France had been the natural enemy of England, while Spain from political necessity was a friend. Now, twelve years later, the positions were reversed. The change was a momentous one for the Queen of Scots. Resuming her intrigues with the Duke of Norfolk, she placed herself in the hands of the Bishop of Ross and of Ridolfi, an influential Florentine banker in the confidence of the Pope. Ridolfi was despatched with instructions from both Mary and Norfolk to Alva, the Pope, and the King of Spain. France was to be kept in the dark. To make sure of Philip, Norfolk promised to restore the Catholic religion, and bound himself to do whatever the Pope, the Catholic King, and the Queen of Scots should command. He asked for troops, 6000 to land in England, 2000 in Ireland, and 2000 in Scotland, while he on his side would furnish an army. Ridolfi was to make orally certain communications not committed to paper. He went first to Alva, who, as usual, was cautious and suspicious. But while putting before Philip the difficulties of an invasion in the secret form proposed, and the danger that, if the project were discovered, Elizabeth would at once, and with apparent justice, put to death both Mary and Norfolk, Alva added suggestively that if Elizabeth should die a natural death, "or any other death", or if her person were seized he, Alva, would be prepared to act without further instructions (May 7, 1571).

From the Netherlands Ridolfi went to Rome. How far he communicated the most essential feature of the plot to Pius V, may be uncertain; but the zealous Pope entered with ardor into the enterprise and sent Ridolfi to Madrid with a letter to Philip, conjuring him to carry it out and praying with his whole soul for its success. On July 7 Ridolfi disclosed his plan in the presence of the Spanish Council of State. As a first step Elizabeth was to be assassinated. The Council discussed when, where, and by whom the blow was to be delivered, and on what ground the war should be made; the Cardinal Archbishop of Seville urging the Bull of deposition, Feria preferring the natural claims of Queen Mary. Philip pondered slowly, and on September 14 left the decision in the hands of Alva. But already the whole plot had been discovered by Burghley. The Bishop of Ross was in the Tower, and under threat of torture confessed all. The Spanish Ambassador was dismissed, and Philip did not dare to resent the affront. Norfolk was tried and condemned for treason (January 16, 1572), and, after months of irresolution on the part of Elizabeth, was executed on June 2.

The successive blows thus aimed at Elizabeth, the Northern rising of 1569, the Bull of 1570, and the Ridolfi conspiracy of 1571, were followed (as has been said) by the Treaty of Blois (which was in effect an abandonment of Mary's cause by France); and almost at the same time (April 1, 1572) came the capture of Brill by the "Beggars of the Sea", which laid the foundations of the independence of the United Provinces. France was thus detached from Spain as well as from Scotland; and Spain, realizing more keenly than ever that the pacification of the Netherlands depended upon the subjection of England, was for the present helpless against her.

Proceedings against Catholics in England [1559-72

Elizabeth from the beginning of her reign had rigorously but cautiously enforced the Acts of Supremacy and Uniformity passed by her first Parliament (1559). They made the practice of the Catholic religion impossible. The immediate effect was to drive from the country the most conscientious of the Catholic clergy and thus to deprive the laity of their natural leaders and guides. The aristocracy had no policy. Strange to say, little or no aid or instruction came from Rome; while the mass of the adherents of the old faith were helpless, there was little need to resort to extreme measures. Yet, if they but moved a little finger Cecil, ever on the watch, had means to crush them under his heel. Witness the apparent trivial incident of the miracle of St Donats. A few months after the Queen's accession an oak-tree in the park of Sir Thomas Bradleigh reft asunder by lightning disclosed in its centre the figure of a cross. Devout Catholics, taking this to be a miracle of good augury, made drawings of the cross and distributed them among their friends. The facts were brought to the knowledge of the Council in the spring of 1561; and Cecil at once dispatched a commission of enquiry into Glamorganshire to take evidence on the spot, and to bring the piece of wood containing the cross to London. A raid was made on the houses of Sir Thomas' friends; and after a strict examination a number of gentlemen and ladies were thrown into prison for having had mass said for them in secret. There was reported to be current among Catholics some hope that Elizabeth would receive a papal Nuncio. In any case Cecil "thought it necessary to dull the papists' expectations by rebating of their humours." The letters and submissions of the offenders exhibit them as paralysed with fear.

Again, in 1568, the Court was disturbed by rumours that in Lancashire or thereabouts "religion was backward", mass commonly said, and priests were harbored. Pius V had in fact initiated some missionary movement in England by sending Lawrence Vaux into the country with certain faculties to absolve from heresy, and with instructions to make it clear that in no circumstances was it lawful for a Catholic to attend the Protestant service. A royal commission was set on foot resulting in the imprisonment of many of the leading gentry of the district; yet a rigorous inquisition failed to discover a trace of political intrigue, though it was on the eve of the northern rising. That rising only failed, according to Dr Sanders, because the faithful had not been sufficiently instructed in the doctrine of the Bull. The Bull had now been launched; the Queen of England was excommunicated and deposed by the highest authority known to her Catholic subjects. Mary Stewart was at hand to take her place. Was it possible for Elizabeth and her Parliament to view the altered situation of affairs with anything but alarm? Parliament made it high treason to bring into the country any papal Bull, any Agnus Dei, or similar objects of devotion consecrated by the Pope. It further showed its temper by demanding that the axe should be laid to the root of the evil. The Queen of Scots, so it seemed, was the one perpetual focus of disaffection and conspiracy; and, if Norfolk had deserved to die, still more so did Mary. Both Houses brought in a Bill of Attainder against her, but Elizabeth forbade it. They then passed an Act excluding Mary from the succession; but the Queen would not hear of it and prorogued Parliament (June 30). The Bull of 1570, however, made loyalty to her throne logically incompatible with obedience to the Pope; and consequently every zealous Catholic was henceforward naturally regarded as a potential rebel. It was in self-defence and on political grounds that the Queen was driven, as she believed, to the merciless use of the rack and the gallows; and, indeed, at the worst of the persecution, Cardinal Alien could make it a matter of reproach to her and to her supporters that their contest with Rome was "not for religion, of which our enemies have not a bit, but for the stability of the empire and worldly prosperity."

1570-3] St Bartholomew. Mary's life in danger

One result of the action of Pius V, which a later Pope "bewailed with tears of blood," was to make the country more Protestant and the Queen more popular. Meanwhile, in the interval between the third and fourth civil wars of France, Catherine, jealous of Coligny's influence over the King and fearful of the Huguenots, prevailed on her son to be rid of all his Protestant enemies by one blow. The Massacre of St Bartholomew (August 23, 1572) filled England and Scotland with horror and dismay. The triumphant acclamation with which the news was received by the Pope and Catholic Princes led to the belief that the massacre had been premeditated as part of a scheme for the extermination of Protestants everywhere. The recent alliance with France scarcely survived the shock. Yet the massacre was a suggestive lesson to Elizabeth. Would not she at least be justified in ridding herself of her single enemy, that one personage who in the eyes of the nation already merited death? She accordingly proposed secretly to Morton and to the Regent Mar, who had succeeded Lennox, that Mary should be placed in their hands for immediate execution. The design was frustrated only by the death of Mar (October 28, 1573).

After 1572 there came about a lull in the conflict between the two Queens and the forces represented by them. Abroad, international relations seemed to be governed for a while rather more by political than religious interests. In Scotland Morton succeeded Mar. The Pacification of Perth (February, 1573) prepared an end to the long period of civil war and anarchy; and shortly afterwards, though not without aid from English troops, Edinburgh Castle, which had still held out for Mary under Kirkcaldy and Maitland, capitulated. Protestantism was now supreme and unquestioned in Scotland. Morion's iron rule brought peace, and with peace commercial activity and prosperity. England herself, enjoying repose from the tranquillity of Scotland and the helplessness of Mary, was year by year gaining strength. A spirit of self-reliance and adventure and a new sense of patriotism were springing up in the heart of the people. The privateering in the Channel in aid of the Gueux and the Huguenots, the buccaneering exploits of seamen who were endeavoring to wrest from Philip the commerce of the Indies, were encouraged or connived at by Elizabeth, who profited by their gains, and thus laid the foundations of her navy.

During this period, however, a grave danger momentarily menaced England and gave new hope to the friends of Mary. Don John of Austria, who had succeeded the more conciliatory Requesens in the government of the Netherlands (1576), had none of Alva's fear of provoking war with Elizabeth. Ambitious himself of a crown and egged on by the Pope, he arrived with a fixed determination to take his army over to England, to marry the Queen of Scots, and to place her on Elizabeth's throne; and now Mary, altogether Spanish, as if mindful of what she had done twenty years before for Henry II of France, drew up a will (February, 1577) by which she made over all her rights in England and elsewhere to the Catholic King, or to anyone of his relations whom he might please to name with the consent of the Pope. But Philip was jealous of his half-brother's ambitious projects; and, as the Netherlands were now strong enough to insist on the withdrawal of Don John's army, England was once more saved from a formidable attack.

1578-82] The Jesuit propaganda in England

But towards the close of 1579 the period of seven years' comparative rest was succeeded by a like period of storm. Gregory XIII, determined to carry into effect the bull of his predecessor, was himself prepared to take the field. The war was to have the character of a crusade. Dr Nicolas Sanders had written (November, 1577) to his friend Dr Allen: "I beseech you to take hold of the Pope, for the King of Spain is as fearful of war as a child of fire. The Pope will give you 2000. If they do not serve to go into England, at least they will serve to go into Ireland. The state of Christendom dependeth upon the stout assailing of England." The Pope accordingly, after the failure of Stukeley's expedition which he had intended for Ireland, sent thither this same Dr Sanders with a body of Italian troops to raise the standard of rebellion. The Pope's soldiers were subsequently reinforced by Spaniards sent clandestinely by Philip, who was still nominally at peace with Elizabeth. The Irish insurrection was crushed; but meanwhile in Scotland a reaction, which had taken place against English interferences and Morton's power, led to the assumption of the reins of government by the young King (March, 1578). The affairs of the country were thrown into confusion, and the partisans of Mary at home and abroad saw their opportunity. In September Esmé Stewart, lord of Aubigny, a Catholic and a friend of the Guises, arrived in Scotland from France, and at once gained an extraordinary influence over James, his cousin. Elizabeth had now lost the hold which she had kept for ten years over the governing power in Scotland. In spite of all her diplomacy and her threats Morton was arrested, December 31, 1580, and put to death six months later on a charge of complicity in the murder of Damley. D'Aubigny was created Duke of Lennox; the King surrounded himself with new men; and Mary entered into negotiations with Lennox for her association in the Crown with her son. While Elizabeth was thus simultaneously threatened in Ireland and baffled in Scotland, Gregory XIII and the General of the Jesuits were despatching into England forces of an entirely new kind.

Many years before (1568) Dr Allen and other clerical exiles had founded a seminary at Douai, ten years later removed to Rheims, which was to supply England with a body of missionaries. In 1579 a similar seminary was established in Rome. The priests who had flocked into the country from these colleges since 1574 were men of no great mark and had excited comparatively little notice. One Cuthbert Mayne, to be known as the proto-martyr of the seminaries, was seized in Cornwall with a copy of an antiquated Bull of no political significance in his possession. He was executed (1571) as an example; but this was the only case of bloodshed under the recent statutes. Presently, however, the Jesuits were induced to take part in the spiritual campaign. Parsons and Campion, men of conspicuous ability and daring, landed in the summer of 1580. They were strictly enjoined by their superiors to refrain from meddling with affairs of State, and they pledged their oaths that their mission was purely apostolic. In a few months they had rekindled the zeal and raised the hopes of the down-trodden Catholics from one end of the country to the other. The government, disbelieving in their apostolic professions, and seeing in every convert a fresh recruit for the army of King Philip, filled the prisons with recusants and priests, captured Campion, and brought him with several of his companions to the gallows on the charge of a treasonable plot of which they were manifestly innocent. But Parsons, who escaped to the Continent, changed his tactics, and presently embarked upon a career of intrigue and conspiracy fraught with momentous consequences to the cause of Catholicism in England.

Convinced that the road to the reduction of England lay through Scotland, he sent Holt, an English missionary and a member of his Order, to Edinburgh to feel his way. Crichton, a Scottish Jesuit, after conference with Parsons and the Duke of Guise, followed; and the two Jesuits in the name of the Pope, the King of Spain, and the Catholics of England, urged Lennox to strike a blow for the liberation of Mary and the restoration of the Roman Church in England. Lennox threw himself into the scheme with enthusiasm, entered into communication with Mary, and offered to lead the army of invasion. Mendoza, then Spanish ambassador in London, was at the same time secretly treating with six English Catholic noblemen, making use of missionary priests as his agents, and in active correspondence with Mary, who, as he wrote to Philip, April, 1582, is "virtually the mainspring of the war, without whose opinion and countenance Lennox and others will do nothing." Presently the Duke of Guise, the Archbishop of Glasgow, Dr Allen, the Provincial of the French Jesuits, and the papal Nuncio, met in conference in Paris to discuss the details of the campaign. Parsons assured them of his own knowledge that the English Catholics were ready to rise the moment the standard was raised in Scotland. It was now agreed that Guise should be the commander of the forces; and it is significant of the political chaos in France that the King was by no means to be admitted to the secret.

Crichton was despatched to Rome, to gain the approval and pecuniary aid of the Pope; and Parsons carried the plan to Philip. The project met with a temporary check by the Raid of Ruthven (August 22, 1582), through which James became a prisoner in the hands of the partisans of the Kirk and the English interest; and Lennox was soon forced to fly the country. When the King recovered his liberty (June, 1583), the enterprise, at the earnest solicitation of Mary, was renewed, the plan being only so far modified that the principal invading force was to land on the coast of England instead of Scotland. Dr Allen and the energetic Father Parsons, who flitted from Court to Court under the disguise of "Melino," continued to be the moving spirits in the affair. Meanwhile, as in the Ridolfi conspiracy, the assassination of Elizabeth became a prominent feature of the enterprise. The papal Nuncio reported to the Cardinal of Como, and the Spanish agent Tassis informed Philip, that Guise and Mayenne had found an English Catholic ready to kill the Queen for 100,000 francs; and half of that sum was deposited in a box in the custody of Archbishop Beton (May, 1583). But Elizabeth's life seemed charmed. The project came to nothing. Mary, according to Parsons, was induced unfairly to lay the blame of the failure on the Duke of Guise and the Archbishop for omitting to supply the assassin with the promised bribe; but, as the Jesuit subsequently explained, "the party in question was a worthless fellow who would do nothing."

1582-7] The foreign conspiracy against Elizabeth

The death of Anjou (June, 1584), by which the Protestant King of Navarre became heir to the throne of France, once more effected a radical change in European politics. Philip had been all along but half-hearted in his alliance with the Guises for this English enterprise. "Nothing," wrote Mendoza, "could be more injurious to Spanish interests and to the hope of converting the island than that the French should get their fingers in through the Queen of Scots and turn things to their own ends." He even hinted to Mary herself that it would be to the advantage of herself and her cause for her to remain as she was. But now the League was declaring it impossible for a heretic to ascend the throne of France; and the Guises were too engrossed in their own concerns at home to give much thought to the affairs of Mary. Philip accordingly saw his way to taking the whole enterprise upon his own shoulders, with the aid of the papal treasury.

Sixtus V succeeded to the tiara in April, 1585. Alien, who with Parsons was summoned to Rome, wrote exultingly to Mary that now the whole execution of the attack was committed to the Duke of Parma, and that he, Parsons, and Hew Owen were to deal with no one else in the matter. Step by step the real object of Spain's ambition stood revealed. Was Philip to place Mary on the throne of England only that she might be immediately succeeded by her heretic son? It was imperative that the Pope should at once effect the deprivation of James, and name in his stead a proper person and a Catholic, "in order that the Queen of Scots may not under the deceptive influence of maternal love think it good to introduce her son into the succession."

Sixtus was on his guard against the too selfish aims of Spain. He had moreover an admiration for Elizabeth; and, to the disgust of Philip's Ambassador, Olivarez, he hoped to find a solution of the English difficulty in the Queen's conversion. "What a valiant woman," he exclaimed to the Venetian Pisany; "she braves the two greatest Kings by land and by sea". "If she were not a heretic", he said to another, "she would be worth a whole world". He even declared that he held in abhorrence the offers made to him for her assassination. But Alien, whom Olivarez described as "the man to lead the dance," was inspiring the Pope with zeal for the cause, and together with Parsons was drawing up pedigrees in proof of Philip's right to the English Crown. "There are few lovers of piety," he wrote to Philip (March 19, 1587), "who do not long to be once more under his Majesty's most sweet sceptre." But it would be better for the King to make good his claim by right of conquest; and, when he was secure in possession, then his relationship to the House of Lancaster might be urged in Parliament, and his title confirmed by the Archbishop of Canterbury (that is, by Alien himself), and by the Catholics, who, "from the death or dismissal of the heretics, would be supreme."

During the earlier stages of this foreign conspiracy (1582-3), the soul of which was secrecy, all Elizabeth's fences appeared to be breaking down. The shifting of parties in Scotland was such that she never could be sure of James or safe from attack on his side. There was no Anjou to do her work for her in the Netherlands. She was no longer able to play her old game of match-making with France; and now (December, 1583) the arrest of Throckmorton and his disclosures revealed the gravity of Catholic disaffection at home, the continental preparations for invasion, and the complicity of the Spanish Ambassador in both. Mendoza was dismissed, threatening revenge. Then came the assassination of the Prince of Orange, at the instigation of Philip (July 10, 1584), a significant enough warning to the Queen, shortly followed by the capture of Father Crichton with papers which told more of the ramifications of the great "enterprise" (October). The whole nation was now moved with one impulse of defiant resolve. Elizabeth's life was in danger, her chief councilors were marked out for slaughter, and the country was exposed to the horrors of invasion or the worst of civil wars. An Association was formed, the members of which took oath to pursue to death, not only any person who should attempt the life of the Queen, but any person in whose favor such an attempt should be made. Parliament, which met in November, in an Act "for the surety of the Queen's Majesty's most royal person and the continuance of the realm in peace," virtually approved the Association provided that the culprit should be found guilty by a Court of Commissioners, and thus in effect rendered Mary incapable of succession in the event of Elizabeth suffering a violent death. The same Parliament, on the presumption that all the seminary priests were accomplices in the practices of Alien and Parsons and had come into the country "to stir up and move sedition, rebellion, and open hostility within her Highness's dominions," enacted that any subject of the Queen ordained abroad by the authority of the Pope and remaining in the kingdom after forty days should be adjudged guilty of high treason. This was the culminating point of the penal legislation against the seminarist clergy; and it was under this statute that the great majority of executions during this and the following reigns took place.

1586] The Babington plot

It is noteworthy that it was not till the twenty-seventh year of her reign, after much provocation from foreign conspiracies fomented by Jesuits and missionary priests in exile, and after several grave attempts at bringing about her assassination, that she was driven to this extreme and barbarous method of persecution. Elizabeth now made up her mind to strong measures in the Netherlands.

In August, 1585, she entered into an alliance with the Estates, and subsequently sent an army under Leicester in defence of their liberties, still, however, pretending that she was not making war upon Spain. At the same time she made every effort to secure the friendship of James; and in the following year (July, 1586) concluded with him an alliance offensive and defensive for the protection of Protestantism in both countries. In this treaty Mary's name is not so much as mentioned. All her hopes of association with her son had already been dashed by James' own refusal to have anything to do with it (August, 1585). She herself was removed to stricter confinement. In the bitterness of her abandonment she wrote to Elizabeth that she would disown, curse, and disinherit her traitorous son (May 23,1585); and again in a letter to Mendoza, which was intercepted by Walsingham (May 20, 1586), she made over all her rights and claims to Philip of Spain. In the spring of 1586 the English adherents of Mary, who were in the secret of the Spanish enterprise, and who believed that no invasion could succeed as long as Elizabeth lived, became desperate. Savage, an officer who had served under Parma, vowed to take her life. Ballard, a seminary priest, went to France to discuss the new plan with Mendoza, then Ambassador at the Court of France, who approved, and suggested that Cecil, Walsingham, and Hunsdon should also be killed.

Antony Babington, a gentleman of good family and fortune, who became the leader in the plot, associated five other assassins with Savage, and undertook to rescue Mary as soon as the deed was done. Walsingham meanwhile held all the threads of the conspiracy in his own hands. His ubiquitous spies, the chief of whom was the priest Gilbert Gifford, had won the confidence of Morgan and other devoted adherents of Mary; and every secret of the conspirators was known. Walsingham resolved to force the hand of Elizabeth by possessing himself of proof of Mary's complicity in the projected assassination. With the aid of Gifford and the ingenious decipherer Phelippes he intercepted, copied, and forwarded every letter which passed between Mary and the confederates. Morgan had prudently let Mary know that Ballard had been warned "not to deal with her as long as he followed affairs which he and others have in hand which tend to do good, which I pray to God may come to pass"; and less prudently in a postscript to Mary's secretary Curie, he wrote, "there be many means in hand to remove the beast which troubleth all the world." Finally, throwing aside all caution he advised Mary to open communications with Babington, who wrote to her an account of the whole plan. She replied in a long and able letter (July 17-27) showing a masterly grasp of all the necessary details to be considered, adding: "Affairs being thus prepared, then shall it be time to set the six gentlemen to work."

Execution of Mary Stewart [1587

Walsingham, now satisfied, arrested Babington and his associates. Mary was removed from Chartley, where she was then in custody (August 8); her papers were seized; and on October 5 she was indicted before a Court of forty-six Commissioners at Fotheringay, under the terms of the late Act, for having compassed or imagined acts tending to the hurt of the Queen. She confronted her accusers and judges, whose jurisdiction she refused to admit, with dignity, courage, and consummate ability. Her protest that she was no subject of Elizabeth was set aside. It was enough that she was a pretender to the throne of England, had broken the laws of the country, and had brought herself within the compass of the late Acts.

She admitted having attempted to gain her freedom with the aid of foreign forces, but strenuously denied having sought the Queen's life, or indeed of having had any communication with Babington, of whom she said she knew nothing. She demanded proof of the charge in her own handwriting. This could not be produced, as the originals when copied and deciphered had been forwarded to their destination. Babington, indeed, had admitted the accuracy of the copies; and to this Mary's secretaries, Nau and Curie, reluctantly testified. It has been argued that the incriminating passages were interpolated by Walsingham's cunning agent, and that the witnesses, in the hope of favor or from fear of torture, had given false evidence. If this could be shown to be probable, it would at least remain impossible to hold that Mary was not fully aware of what would be the consequence to Elizabeth in the event of a violent rescue of herself and a Spanish conquest of the kingdom.

Judgment against her was pronounced on November 25 in the Star Chamber at Westminster. A few days later, the Parliament confirmed the sentence, and petitioned the Queen for Mary's immediate execution. Elizabeth hesitated. Mary alive was still a card in her hands to play against Scotland, against France and Spain, while there was no saying what political dangers might arise from her death. To Elizabeth's ministers, however, the possible succession of Mary meant utter ruin; and the people also saw before them in that event the downfall of their religion and the terrors of the Inquisition. The Queen asked Parliament if some other way could not be found for her security. Both Houses unanimously answered, none.

Two months passed before the warrant was signed and sealed; and even then Elizabeth, who at this critical moment showed herself at her worst, desired that Mary's custodian, Sir Amias Paulet, should take upon himself the responsibility of despatching his prisoner according to the terms of his oath of the Association. When Paulet firmly refused "to shed blood without authority of the law," the Secretary Davison carried the warrant to the Privy Council, who, without further reference to the Queen, forwarded it to the Earls of Shrewsbury and Kent, appointed to be present at the execution.

Mary was beheaded at Fotheringay in February, 1587. Elizabeth, whose annoyance may not have been altogether feigned, protested in vain to the foreign Ambassadors that the deed had been done in spite of her wishes and intention; but nevertheless she was able to persuade King James that for him to take any hostile action would be to imperil his chance of the Succession; and she as craftily pacified the King of France by convincing him that to quarrel with her would be to play into the hands of the Guises and Spain. Philip alone prepared in earnest for war, now, however, not on behalf of Mary's line of succession, or, indeed, primarily for Mary's religion, but for the conquest of the kingdom in his own interest.

Elizabeth's aim throughout her reign had been to make a united people. Her Church was intended to be a compromise between the contending creeds. Her foreign policy was essentially defensive. The difficulties of her position were immense, and in her weakness she had recourse to the arts of the feeble. She seemed indeed to succeed politically, not in spite of, but by the very means of her unscrupulous methods, her mendacity, duplicity, and feminine caprices. Her personal interests were fortunately identical with those of the State. The heart of the nation, though not always the numerical majority, its youth, mental vigour, and enterprise were on her side. She knew her people well, and was proud of being altogether one of them, in her own phrase "mere English ", and few sovereigns have been so faithfully served by their ministers. Her unfortunate rival, with a personality more attractive and gifts more brilliant if less solid, came into her kingdom virtually a foreigner; and a foreigner she remained, alien above all to the stern religious creed which she found there established. Her interests and ideals were those of the Guises. Her heart was not in her own country, but elsewhere; and the main object of her ambition, the Crown of her neighbour, she pursued with an all-absorbing passion, save for the moment when a more human passion, her infatuation for Bothwell, turned her aside on the path which led to her destruction. Every folly committed by her seemed to meet with an instant Nemesis. At her best she was surrounded by statesmen and advisers who could but give her a half-hearted support; and it was her ill fate to be betrayed or abandoned in turn by all in whom she had at any time put her trust-her brother, her husband, and her son. When all hope was lost, she represented herself as the victim of religious persecution; and sentiment has invested her pitiable sufferings and tragic end with the halo of martyrdom. Her evil destiny seemed to pursue her party and her cause beyond her grave. Disaster and humiliation befell her one avenger among the Catholic Princes. Her death broke up the unity and power of her English followers. Priests and laymen alike were divided into factions, Spanish and Scottish, Jesuit and Secular, whose quarrels brought disgrace upon the Catholic mission; and presently the sovereignty of the United Kingdom of England and Scotland, which she had coveted for herself and her Church, was to fall to the Protestant son whom she had done her best to disown and disinherit.