NOTES.

211

58

Teulet, ii. 204.

59 Hay Fleming, pp. 486-488, 512-514.

60 This account follows Mr A. M. Scott's 'Battle of Langside' (Glasgow, 1885). Mr Scott has local knowledge, and supplies a useful map.

61 Calendar, ii. 411. May 19.

63 Calendar, ii. 414-426.

62 Calendar, ii. 439.

64 Calendar, ii. 429. June 12, Herries to Leicester.

65 Calendar, ii. 433-435.

67 Teulet, ii. 227, 228.

66 Calendar, ii. 441, 442.

68 Teulet, ii. 237.

69 Drury to Cecil, July 10, For. Cal. Eliz., viii. 496, 497.

70 Labanoff, ii. 166-188; Calendar, ii. 464-480.

71 Calendar, ii. 479.

73 Froude, viii. 382, 383.

75 Calendar, ii. 511.

77 British Museum, Titus, c. 12, fol. 157.

72 Calendar, ii. 457.

74 Calendar, ii. 510.

76 Goodall, ii. 337-343.

78 British Museum, Additional MS., 33,531, fol. 119 et seq.

79 Goodall, ii. 148-153; Haynes, pp. 480, 481.

80 Calendar, ii. 526-528; Hosack, ii. 496-501, with the original text restored.

81 Goodall, ii. 162-170; Mystery of Mary Stuart, p. 258, note 2; Camden, Annals, pp. 143-145; Laing, i. 226; Mystery of Mary Stuart, pp. 357, 358.

82 Bain, Calendar, ii. 693.

84 Hosack, i. 250, noted; Laing, ii. 269.

85 Froude, viii. 406, citing Simancas MSS.

87 Labanoff, ii. 219 et seq.

89 Goodall, ii. 179-182.

92 Froude, viii. 453.

94 Goodall, ii. 187-189.

96 Goodall, ii. 206, 207.

98 Goodall, ii. 218-221.

100 Goodall, ii. 222-226.

83 Hosack, i. 518-522.

86 Calendar, ii. 533.

88 Calendar, ii. 541.

90 Fénelon, i. 51.

91 Goodall, ii. 183, 184.

93 Knollys to Cecil, Calendar, ii. 551.

95 Goodall, ii. 201, 202.

97 Melville, pp. 210-212.

99 Goodall, ii. 221-223.

101 Hosack, i. 424-426.

102 Goodall, ii. 228-231.

103 Mystery of Mary Stuart, pp. xiii-xviii, citing the Cambridge MS.

104 Appendix A., The Casket Letters.

105 Bain, ii. 579, 580.

106 Calendar, Bain, ii. 581. The matter of Crawford's deposition I take from the papers of Lennox in the Cambridge Library, unpublished. See 'Mystery of Mary Stuart,' p. 280, and note.

107 Goodall, ii. 257-260; Bain, ii. 580, 581.

108 Goodall, ii. 274-277, 295-297.

110 Goodall, ii. 306.

109 Goodall, ii. 305.

CHAPTER IX.

REGENCIES OF MURRAY AND LENNOX.

1568-1572.

The

THE only point of national importance in the murderous intrigues between the death of Riccio and Mary's flight to England was, that Protestantism in Scotland now breathed more freely. incubus of a Catholic queen was removed from Presbyterianism. But while the evolution of Presbyterianism towards a theocracy was the trend of the current of national life, the deep main stream was broken, thwarted, and parcelled by the obstacles of new personal and party intrigues. These have no historical interest except as illustrations of the treachery and ferocity which, here as in the Corcyra of Thucydides, were bred by revolution. A creed, an order of society, had been overthrown: the men who survived among its ruins were, whatever their nominal shade of theological opinion, selfish, false, bloodthirsty, desperate, almost beyond parallel. The only partisans who held a straight course were men like Craig and Knox, and the other leaders among the Presbyterian clergy. They knew what they wanted, and what they did not want: their motives were national and theological, not merely personal or dynastic. The triumph of the Kirk and of a severe morality they desired as to Mary, the stake or the block were all that they would consent to grant her; though, perhaps, some of them wavered at one juncture.

:

Mary was now an exile, a prisoner, and discredited, Elizabeth hoped, by the public inspection at Hampton Court of the casket letters. But not even yet could Presbyterianism, still less could Elizabeth, feel secure. The scene at Hampton Court had been but a shadowy triumph. We do not know what the assembled

MARY IS THREATENED.

213

English nobles really thought as to the genuineness of the casket letters. They pronounced no opinions.1 Mary persisted in asking for a view of the letters: her entreaties were backed by those of the French Ambassador. At one moment he thought that Elizabeth had consented; but no, the Scottish queen was denied the right of the humblest accused person.2 In these circumstances, no just man could conclude, on the evidence of the letters shown at Hampton Court, that she was guilty. As we show later, in another case, the forgers were too skilful for the experts of that age, or at least for persons perfectly familiar with the handwriting of an accused man whom forgers implicated in crime.3 On the other hand, the actions of Mary's agents, Lesley and Herries, provoked suspicion. They were obviously unconvinced of her innocence. They misread or did not choose to act on her instructions. She said that she would accuse her accusers after she had once seen the originals of the papers on which they based their charge. Herries at once brought a vague accusation against the accusers; this led to those offers to settle the question by single combat, which then were frequently exchanged, but almost never acted upon.* There was a deadlock. Mary would take no steps without seeing the pièces de conviction, and these she never saw.

The problem of the disposal of Mary was as threatening as ever. She had assuredly not been found guilty, and the cloud under which she lay was so thin and fleeting that the old question of the succession to Elizabeth was already being complicated with Mary's existence and her claims. No one knew this better than Cecil. On December 22, a week after the scene at Hampton Court, he set down his projects and his perplexities on paper. Mary was, he said, "a lawful prisoner." She must repair her wrongs to Elizabeth (her pretensions to the English crown) before she could be allowed to depart. Elizabeth has "just claim to superiority over Scotland." Mary "is bound to answer her subjects' petitions," those of Murray and his accomplices. Mary's guilt will be published to the world: if she proves that Murray, or his party, are also guilty, that will not clear her. These and other threats are to be used for the purpose of driving Mary into a compromise. She must, under these menaces, assent to certain propositions: "the child" (James VI.) "being for education brought to England." 5

The threats were hinted to Mary, by Elizabeth, in a letter of December 21. Lesley, Bishop of Ross, was highly praised, the

214

CIVIL WAR IMMINENT (1569).

idea being that Lesley and Knollys, Mary's jailor, would induce her to accept Cecil's propositions. These were—

1. That Mary should ask leave to stay in England; that her son, though remaining king, should be educated in England; that Murray should remain Regent.

2. Or, Mary shall remain titular queen: if James dies young, "then the Government shall be in her name"; if she dies first, James and "her issue" shall retain the crown.

3. Or, Mary shall be titular and actual queen, joined with James in the title; Murray continuing Regent till James is eighteen. Mary is to be removed to Tutbury and more closely guarded: Lesley is to be secretly informed, and urged to persuade Mary to

consent.

Mary's commissioners on January 7 declined to carry any such terms to their mistress.7

Mary, between the York and Westminster Conferences, had consented to a similar compromise, which she abandoned at the suggestion of Norfolk. But now she had been disgraced by the exhibition of her real or alleged casket letters. Therefore the worst was over. Without an ally, a counsellor, or a friend, Mary stood at bay. She would never yield her crown, "and my last word in life shall be that of a Queen of Scotland."

Lesley, a creeping thing who had never believed in her cause, and whose shufflings had severely damaged it, was employed to whisper assent. On February 10, from her new prison, Tutbury, in the jailorship of Lord Shrewsbury, Mary wrote to Elizabeth: “I pray you never again to permit propositions so disadvantageous and dishonourable for me as those to which the Bishop of Ross has been persuaded to listen. As I have bidden Mr Knollys tell you, I have made a solemn vow to God never to retreat from the place to which God has called me."8

To this end had the intrigues of Murray, Cecil, and Elizabeth come. Mary stood on her innocence and her right, and henceforth there would be a queen's party, a king's party, and civil war more or less open in Scotland. Mary, or her agent, despatched letters warning her adherents (with gross exaggerations) that Elizabeth meant to do what Henry VIII. had aimed at while she was a baby, to seize the child prince and the fortresses. The Hamiltons, Argyll, and Huntly were in arms, and though Châtelherault and Herries were still detained in England, Murray would

MURRAY INTRIGUES WITH NORFOLK (1569). 215

find the Border beacons lighted as he returned, and ambush laid for him on the English Border by Westmoreland and the Nortons.

This posture of affairs alarmed Murray, who in January still hung, much in debt, about the English Court. From his situation arose a new intrigue. England was seething with plots. Leicester, Throckmorton, and other Protestants were anxious about the succession, and jealous of Cecil. The Northern nobles, no less anxious, but more Catholic, and jealous of Norfolk, worked for a marriage between Mary and Don John of Austria, which could only be secured by open civil war. Norfolk himself was still anxious to wed Mary (though to Elizabeth he denied it), and had a foot in each camp. Elizabeth was being pressed by Spain for restitution of spoils piratically taken by Hawkins. Meanwhile Scotland might be in a flame if Murray did not return, and if he tried to return, his throat would probably be cut on the Border.

In these circumstances Murray approached Norfolk. They had been in touch before at York, when Norfolk distantly hinted at his desire to marry Mary. Murray now proposed to secure his own safe return by reviving the subject, and gaining Norfolk to secure Mary's assent to peace on the Border and to his own safety from Westmoreland. The man who, in company with some of Darnley's murderers, had just accused his sister of Darnley's murder, now sought the grace of the man who had admitted his strong belief in her guilt, and who desired to take her for his bedfellow ! The Norfolk marriage could not conceivably be approved of by Murray. Whatever strengthened Mary weakened him, whatever helped her cause threatened Presbyterianism, and Murray was godly. But the danger from the marriage was remote; Elizabeth assuredly would not consent to it: the danger in Scotland, and to Murray's own throat, was imminent. He therefore sought an interview with Norfolk, of which, when Norfolk was under suspicion, Murray later made his own report to Elizabeth (October 29, 1569).

He says that in his private discourse with Norfolk, at York in October 1568, he did not "smell" what the Duke intended; he partly smelt it from the Duke's language, but now he understands. Before leaving England he met Norfolk in the park at Hampton Court, told him that his sister's marriage to a "godly personage would reconcile him to her, and that, of all godly and honourable personages, he preferred Norfolk. Murray also sent in a letter of Norfolk's, which was produced against the Duke later, at his trial.