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disloyally invaded by two of her accompanying CHAP. nobles.14 As she rode thro Perth, one of her frequent and almost habitual illnesses came upon her, and she was carried from her horse to her lodgings. The town presented her its complimenting feeling, with a heart of gold filled with gold; but the accompanying pageants did not please her," probably from their religious allusions. St. Andrew's, and Falkland, where her father died, were the limits of her journey; 16 and she returned to Edinburgh, to be affronted by zeal without discretion," and by an assumption of authority and insulting dictation, which at that critical juncture did no credit to the Scotch reformers, and could only raise the worst spirit of resentment and dislike in the bosoms of those, who needed no stimulus to hate the Protestant innovations.18 The

14 Her grace's devout chaplains would, by the good device of Arthur Erskine, have sung a high mass. The earl of Argyle and the lord James so disturbed the queen, that some, both priests and clerks, left their places with broken heads and bloody ears.' Rand. letter, ib. 15 Rand. lett. Keith, 190. 16 Rand. lett. ib.

17 The pageants at Edinburgh, as described by Knox, imply what displeased her at Stirling: Preparations were made for her entry into the town, in farces, masking, and other prodigalities. Fain would our fools have counterfeited France. Whatsoever might set forth her glory; that, she heard and gladly beheld. The keys were delivered to her by a pretty boy, descending as it were from a cloud. The verses of her own praise she heard and smiled at. But when the Bible was presented, and the praise thereof declared, she began to frown.' Knox, 316. She could only feel this presentation to be what it was meant to be, a public rebuke for being of the religion in which she had been educated, and chose to retain.

18 Keith gives it as dated 2d October 1561, charging All monks, friars, priests, nuns, adulterers, fornicators, and all such filthy persons, to remove from the town in twenty-four hours, under the pain of carting, burning on the cheek, and banishment for ever.' p. 192. Knox, who ascribes it to the provost and bailiffs, availing themselves of an ancient custom of proclaiming these statutes after their annual election at Michaelmas, describes it as ordaining, that no mass-monger, no obstinate papist that corrupted the people, such as priest, friars, and others of that sort, should be found in the town, &c.' p. 316. A prohibition, which in fact expelled at once the queen herself, and the great French nobility, and all her friends and retinue who were

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chief lords resisted the strongly urged desire of the
ministers to deprive the queen of her private mass;
lord James was made the governor of the borders
on the Scottish side, and concurred with lord Grey
in the English districts, to compel their depredating
occupiers to be quiet.20 To him and to Maitland
the queen committed her confidential administra-
tion.21
She again tried her ready eloquence on
Knox in a personal interview,22 but could make no
suasive impression on this animated and unaccom-
modating preacher.23

Catholics. Among these were two princes of the house of Guise, who
were opposing the Huguenots in France, on the public ground,
among others, of these turbulent practices.

19 Knox describes the debate in which he opposed her having her religion free in her own chapel.' p. 317. Randolph, on 24th October, wrote to Cecil, of Knox: I commend better the success of his doings and preachings, than the manner thereof;' but adds this intimation of his great influence, His severity keepeth us in marvellous order.' Keith, 196.

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20 Knox, 317. Lord Bothwell assisted him in this. ib. His judicial severities caused the chiefs of all the border clans to agree stay theft in time to come.' Rand. Keith, p. 205.

21 Randolph thus describes them: The lord James dealeth, according to his nature, rudely, homely and bluntly. Secretary Maitland, more delicately and finely, yet nothing swerveth from the other in mind and effect. She [the queen] is patient to hear, and beareth much.' Lett. Keith, 196. On 30th January 1562, James was created earl of Murray, and a week afterwards earl of Mar, and the next day married the daughter of the earl marshal. Knox, 327. Privy Seal Reg. 3 Chalm. 367, 378.

22 His sermon on the ignorance and vanity of princes, being reported to her, she sent for him to her bedchamber, and before her ladies and court made a long oration,' which he does not detail; but to his long answer she said, 'Your words are sharp enough, as you have spoken them, but yet they were told me in another manner. I know that my uncles and you are not of one religion; and, therefore, I cannot blame you to have no good opinion of them; but if you hear any thing of my. self that mislikes you, come to myself and tell me, and I will hear you.' His reply was not very courteous. You will not always be at your book,' was her last remark, and so turned her back.' Knox, p. 336. 23 He says of himself, The said John departed with a reasonable merry countenance; whereat some papists were offended, saying, 'He is not afraid.' He answered, 'Why should the pleasant face of a lady afray me? I have looked in the face of many angry men, and yet have not been afraid above measure.' p. 336.

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Mary continued to decline a ratification of the CHAP. Edinburgh treaty; and one of her motives was, that if by that she relinquished her immediate claim to the English crown, it did not ensure to her the succession in case Elizabeth should die without issue; and therefore both she and her advisers pressed to have a present recognition of this inheritance." It was, however, too dangerous to Elizabeth and to the Protestant religion, that a Catholic successor, with present pretensions, should be so prematurely and explicitly appointed, especially while that person meant to establish popery by force in her own country, and was under the influence of papal agency. But the more the English cabinet receded from such a positive and committing enactment, fresh with the recollection of her namesake's violences to establish popery by force, the more eagerly Mary urged it to Elizabeth, with that fluency and copiousness of expression to which the English ambassador at Paris had remarked she was inclined.25 She declared her willingness to make a new treaty like the former, provided her interest to that crown might there

"Mary's letter to Elizabeth, from Seyton, 5 Jan. 1562. Haynes, p. 377. Maitland's letter to Cecil, from Edinburgh, 15 Dec. 1561. ib. 375.

25 See before, vol. 3. ch. 19. Her letter represented, 'We trust, being so near your cousin, you would be loth we should receive so manifest an injury as awnterly to be debarred from that title, which in possibility may fall unto us. We will deal frankly with you, and wish that you deal friendlily with us. We will have at this present, no judge of the equity of our demand, but yourself. If we had such a matter to treat with any other prince, there is no person whose advice we would rather follow. So great a conceit do we make of your amity towards us, and such an opinion have we conceived of your uprightness in judgment, that altho the matter partly touch yourself, we dare adventure to put much in your hands. We will require nothing of you, but that which we could find in our heart to grant unto you, if the like case were ours.' Haynes, p. 377.

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BOOK with be put in good surety." 26 This was followed by an eloquent peroration, which was creditable to her talents or to her feelings, and may have resulted from a combination of both.27 It is too easy and

too natural, and in some parts too feminine, for a statesman's pen; tho it displays, on the whole, the political sagacity of a mind, which for the last fifteen months had been much personally exercised in great public concerns, as she had taken the lead of her husband in all English and Scotch affairs.

To gain this dangerous assurance of the succession, Mary and her ministers exerted every means that were not inconsistent with the amity of the two 26 Haynes, p. 377.

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27 Which matter being once in this sort knit up betwixt us, and by the means thereof the whole seed of dissention taken up by the root, we doubt not but hereafter our behaviour together in all respects shall represent to the world as great and firm amity as by stories is expressed to have been at any time betwixt whatsoever couple of dearest friends mentioned in them, to the great comfort of our subjects and perpetual quietness of both the realms, which we are bound by all good means to procure. We leave to your own consideration what reasons we might allege to confirm the equity of our demand; and what is probable that others would allege if they were in our place, which we pass over in silence.

'You see what abundance of love, natnre has wrought in our heart towards you; whereby we are moved rather to admit something that others perchance would esteem to be an inconvenience, than leave any root of breach; and to set aside the manner of treating accustomed among other princes, leaving all ceremonies, to propone and utter the bottom of our mind nakedly without any circumstances: which fashion of dealing, in our opinion, deserves to be answered in the like frankness.

'If God will grant any good occasion that we meet together, which we wish may be soon, we trust you shall more clearly perceive the security of our good meaning than we can express by writing. In the mean season we desire you heartily, as you term us your good sister, so imagine with yourseif that we are so in effect, and that you may not look for no less assured and firm amity at our hands, than if we were your natural sister indeed. Of this you shall from time to time have good experience, so long as it shall please you to continue on your part the good intelligence begun betwixt us.

And thus, right excellent, right high and mighty princess, our dearest sister and cousin, we commit you to the tuition of the Almighty.' Seyton, 5 Jan. 1562. Haynes, 378.

31

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sovereigns. Difficulties were raised against the CHAP. friendly interview which Elizabeth desired, because this point was not conceded:28 till some months afterwards, Mary sent her state secretary to arrange conditions for its taking place," when articles were settled accordingly for a meeting at York at the end of the ensuing August.30 But as the blood shed at Vassy had alarmed the French Protestant nobility, and terminated their peaceful relations with the Catholic party,31 and as the Guises were forming new combinations and secret efforts to attack the reformed, the English cabinet made the interview dependent on the pacification of these disquieting perturbations, which, from Mary's affinity and favor to the leaders of the Romish system in France, and from Elizabeth's danger if their opponents were destroyed, could not long continue without involving both the English and Scottish governments in their fatal agitations. In June, the conferences between the great French parties produced no conciliation,

32

28 See Maitland's letter to Cecil, of 27 Feb. 1562. Haynes, 380. 29 The authority to him is dated Holyrood House, 25 May. Haynes, 386.

30 See them in Haynes, p. 388-90. It was to be between 20 August and 20 September. The Scottish queen might come with 1000 persons in her retinue, and be permitted to use the rites and ceremonies of her own religion. Current English monies were to be exchanged for ten thousand pounds of gold and silver of Scotland, as the monies of that country did not circulate in England; or the fine gold and silver coin of Scotland were to be made current here for six months, at their just value as compared with English monies. ib. On 8 July the safeconduct was assigned for her, copied in Haynes, 390.

31 This occurred in the March of this year. See before.

32 On 14 June, sir R. Throckmorton, from Paris, informed sir Th. Chaloner, the English ambassador in Spain, that the queen mother and king of Navarre had met the prince of Condé, with an hundred horse each, 'in a colloquy in the field, and on horseback, for fear of ambushments and treason, which they say was in practice at the first day assigned, and therefore the conference was disappointed.' Lett. Haynes, 386.

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