influence with the queen, in order to divert her from a measure which would load her with eternal infamy and dishonor. Not satisfied even with this admonition, he took the first opportunity of informing the public, from the pulpit, of the whole transaction; and expressed to them his fears that, notwithstanding all remonstrances, their sovereign was still obstinately bent on her fatal purpose. “For himself,” he said, “he had already discharged his conscience; and yet again would take heaven and earth to witness that he abhorred and detested that marriage as scandalous and hateful in the sight of mankind; but since the great, as he perceived, either by their flattery or silence, gave countenance to the measure, he besought the faithful to pray fervently to the Almighty that a resolution, taken contrary to all law, reason, and good conscience, might, by the divine blessing, be turned to the comfort and benefit of the church and kingdom.” These speeches offended the court extremely; and Craig was anew summoned before the council, to answer for his temerity in thus passing the bounds of his commission. But he told them, that the bounds of his commission were the word of God, good laws, and natural reason; and were the Queen’s marriage tried by any of these standards, it would appear infamous and dishonorable, and would so be esteemed by the whole world. The council were so overawed by this heroic behavior in a private clergyman, that they dismissed him without further censure or punishment.[*] But though this transaction might have recalled Bothwell and the queen of Scots from their infatuation, and might have instructed them in the dispositions of the people, as well as in their own inability to oppose them, they were still resolute to rush forward to their own manifest destruction. The marriage was solemnized by the bishop of Orkney, a Protestant, who was afterwards deposed by the church for this scandalous compliance. Few of the nobility appeared at the ceremony: they had most of them, either from shame or fear, retired to their own houses. The French ambassador, Le Croc, an aged gentleman of honor and character, could not be prevailed on, though a dependent of the house of Guise, to countenance the marriage by his presence.[*] Elizabeth remonstrated, by friendly letters and messages, against the marriage.[**] The court of France made like opposition; but Mary, though on all other occasions she was extremely obsequious to the advice of her relations in that country, was here determined to pay no regard to their opinion.
The news of these transactions, being carried to foreign countries, filled Europe with amazement, and threw infamy, not only on the principal actors in them, but also on the whole nation, who seemed, by their submission and silence, and even by their declared approbation, to give their sanction to these scandalous practices.[***] The Scots who resided abroad met with such reproaches, that they durst nowhere appear in public; and they earnestly exhorted their countrymen at home to free them from the public odium, by bringing to condign punishment the authors of such atrocious crimes. This intelligence, with a little more leisure for reflection, roused men from their lethargy; and the rumors which, from the very beginning,[****] had been spread against Mary, as if she had concurred in the king’s murder, seemed now, by the subsequent transactions, to have received a strong confirmation and authority.
** Keith, p. 392.
*** Digges, p. 14.
It was every where said, that even though no particular and direct proofs had as yet been produced of the queen’s guilt, the whole tenor of her late conduct was sufficient, not only to beget suspicion, but to produce entire conviction against her: that her sudden resolution of being reconciled to her husband, whom before she had long and justly hated; her bringing him to court, from which she had banished him by neglects and rigors; her fitting up separate apartments for him; were all of them circumstances which, though trivial in themselves, yet, being compared with the subsequent events, bore a very unfavorable aspect for her: that the least which, after the king’s murder, might have been expected in her situation, was a more than usual caution in her measures, and an extreme anxiety to punish the real assassins, in order to free herself from all reproach and suspicion: that no woman who had any regard to her character, would allow a man, publicly accused of her husband’s murder, so much as to approach her presence, far less give him a share in her councils, and endow him with favor and authority that an acquittal, merely in the absence of accusers, was very ill fitted to satisfy the public; especially if that absence proceeded from a designed precipitation of the sentence, and from the terror which her known friendship for the criminal had infused into every one: that the very mention of her marriage to such a person, in such circumstances, was horrible; and the contrivances of extorting a consent from the nobility, and of concerting a rape, were gross artifices, more proper to discover her guilt than prove her innocence: that where a woman thus shows a consciousness of merited reproach, and instead of correcting, provides only thin glosses to cover her exceptionable conduct, she betrays a neglect of fame, which must either be the effect or the cause of the most shameful enormities: that to espouse a man who had, a few days before, been so scandalously divorced from his wife, who, to say the least, was believed to have a few months before assassinated her husband, was so contrary to the plainest rules of behavior, that no pretence of indiscretion or imprudence could account for such a conduct: that a woman who, so soon after her husband’s death, though not attended with any extraordinary circumstances, contracts a marriage which might in itself be the most blameless, cannot escape severe censure; but one who overlooks for her pleasure so many other weighty considerations, was equally capable, in gratifying her appetites, to neglect every regard to honor and humanity: that Mary was not ignorant of the prevailing opinion of the public with regard to her own guilt, and of the inferences which would every where be drawn from her conduct; and therefore, if she still continued to pursue measures which gave such just offence, she ratified by her actions, as much as she could by the most formal confession, all the surmises and imputations of her enemies: that a prince was here murdered in the face of the world; Bothwell alone was suspected and accused; if he were innocent, nothing could absolve him, either in Mary’s eyes or those of the public, but the detection and conviction of the real assassin: yet no inquiry was made to that purpose, though a parliament had been assembled; the sovereign and wife was here plainly silent from guilt, the people from terror: that the only circumstance which opposed all these presumptions, or rather proofs, was the benignity and goodness of her preceding behavior, which seemed to remove her from all suspicions of such atrocious inhumanity; but that the characters of men were extremely variable, and persons guilty of the worst actions were not always naturally of the worst and most criminal dispositions; that a woman who, in a critical and dangerous moment, had sacrificed her honor to a man of abandoned principles, might thenceforth be led blindfold by him to the commission of the most enormous crimes, and was in reality no longer at her own disposal: and that, though one supposition was still left to alleviate her blame; namely, that Bothwell, presuming on her affection towards him, had of himself committed the crime, and had never communicated it to her; yet such a sudden and passionate love to a man whom she had long known, could not easily be accounted for, without supposing some degree of preceding guilt; and as it appeared that she was not afterwards restrained, either by shame or prudence, from incurring the highest reproach and danger, it was not likely that a sense of duty or humanity would have a more powerful influence over her.
These were the sentiments which prevailed throughout Scotland: and as the Protestant teachers, who had great authority, had long borne an animosity to Mary, the opinion of her guilt was by that means the more widely diffused, and made the deeper impression on the people. Some attempts made by Bothwell, and, as is pretended, with her consent, to get the young prince into his power, excited the most serious attention; and the principal nobility, even many of those who had formerly been constrained to sign the application in favor of Bothwells marriage, met at Stirling, and formed an association for protecting the prince, and punishing the king’s murderers.[*] * Keith, p. 394.
The earl of Athole himself, a known Catholic, was the first author of this confederacy, the earls of Argyle, Morton, Marre, Glencairne, the lords Boyd, Lindesey, Hume, Semple, Kirkaldy of Grange, Tulibardine, and Secretary Lidington, entered zealously into it. The earl of Murray, foreseeing such turbulent times, and being desirous to keep free of these dangerous factions, had some time before desired and obtained Mary’s permission to retire into France.
Lord Hume was first in arms; and leading a body of eight hundred horse, suddenly environed the queen of Scots and Bothwell, in the Castle of Borthwick. They found means of making their escape to Dunbar; while the confederate lords were assembling their troops at Edinburgh, and taking measures to effect their purpose. Had Bothwell been so prudent as to keep within the fortress of Dunbar, his enemies must have dispersed for want of pay and subsistence; but hearing that the associated lords were fallen into distress, he was so rash as to take the field, and advance towards them. The armies met at Carberry Hill, about six miles from Edinburgh; and Mary soon became sensible that her own troops disapproved of her cause, and were averse to spill their blood in the quarrel.[*] After some bravadoes of Bothwell, where he discovered very little courage, she saw no resource but that of holding a conference with Kirkaldy of Grange, and of putting herself, upon some general promises, into the hands of the confederates. She was conducted to Edinburgh, amidst the insults of the populace; who reproached her with her crimes, and even held before her eyes, which way soever she turned, a banner, on which were painted the murder of her husband and the distress of her infant son.[**] Mary, overwhelmed with her calamities, had recourse to tears and lamentations. Meanwhile Bothwell, during her conference with Grange, fled unattended to Dunbar; and fitting out a few small ships, set sail for the Orkneys, where he subsisted during some time by piracy.
He was pursued thither by Grange, and his ship was taken, with several of his servants; who afterwards discovered all the circumstances of the king’s murder, and were punished for the crime.[***] Bothwell himself escaped in a boat, and found means to get a passage to Denmark, where he was thrown into prison, lost his senses, and died miserably about ten years after; an end worthy of his flagitious conduct and behavior.
*** Anderson, vol. ii. p. 165, 166, etc.
The queen of Scots, now in the hands of an enraged faction met with such treatment as a sovereign may naturally expect from subjects, who have their future security to provide for, as well as their present animosity to gratify. It is pretended that she behaved with a spirit very little suitable to her condition, avowed her inviolable attachment to Bothwell,[*] and even wrote him a letter, which the lords intercepted, wherein she declared, that she would endure any extremity, nay, resign her dignity and crown itself, rather than relinquish his affections.[**] The malecontents, finding the danger to which they were exposed in case Mary should finally prevail, thought themselves obliged to proceed with rigor against her; and they sent her next day under a guard to the Castle of Lochlevin, situated in a lake of that name. The mistress of the house was mother to the earl of Murray; and as she pretended to have been lawfully married to the late king of Scots, she naturally bore an animosity to Mary, and treated her with the utmost harshness and severity.
* Keith, p. 419.
** Melvil, p. 84.
Elizabeth, who was fully informed of all those incidents, seemed touched with compassion towards the unfortunate queen; and all her fears and jealousies being now laid asleep, by the consideration of that ruin and infamy in which Mary’s conduct had involved her, she began to reflect on the instability of human affairs, the precarious state of royal grandeur, the danger of encouraging rebellious subjects; and she resolved to employ her authority for alleviating the calamities of her unhappy kinswoman. She sent Sir Nicholas Throgmorton ambassador to Scotland, in order to remonstrate both with Mary and the associated lords; and she gave him instructions, which, though mixed with some lofty pretensions, were full of that good sense which was so natural to her, and of that generosity which the present interesting conjuncture had called forth. She empowered him to declare[*] in her name to Mary, that the late conduct of that princess, so enormous, and in every respect so unjustifiable, had given her the highest offence; and though she felt the movements of pity towards her, she had once determined never to interpose in her affairs, either by advice or assistance, but to abandon her entirely, as a person whose condition was totally desperate, and honor irretrievable.
* The reality of this letter appears somewhat disputable; chiefly because Murray and his associates never mentioned it in their accusation of her before Queen Elizabeth’s commissioners.
That she was well assured that other foreign princes, Mary’s near relations, had embraced the same resolution; but, for her part, the late events had touched her heart with more tender sympathy, and had made her adopt measures more favorable to the liberty and interests of the unhappy queen: that she was determined not to see her oppressed by her rebellious subjects, but would employ all her good offices, and even her power, to redeem her from captivity, and place her in such a condition as would at once be compatible with her dignity and the safety of her subjects: that she conjured her to lay aside all thoughts of revenge, except against the murderers of her husband; and as she herself was his near relation, she was better entitled than the subjects of Mary to interpose her authority on that head; and she therefore besought that princess, if she had any regard to her own honor and safety, not to oppose so just and reasonable a demand: that after those two points were provided for, her own liberty and the punishment of her husband’s assassins, the safety of her infant son was next to be considered; and there seemed no expedient more proper for that purpose, than sending him to be educated in England: and that, besides the security which would attend his removal from a scene of faction and convulsions, there were many other beneficial consequences, which it was easy to foresee as the result of his education in that country.[*] The remonstrances which Throgmorton was instructed to make to the associated lords, were entirely conformable to these sentiments which Elizabeth entertained in Mary’s favor. She empowered him to tell them, that whatever blame she might throw on Mary’s conduct, any opposition to their sovereign was totally unjustifiable, and incompatible with all order and good government: that it belonged not to them to reform, much less to punish, the maleadministration of their prince; and the only arms which subjects could in any case lawfully employ against the supreme authority, were entreaties, counsels, and representations: that if these expedients failed, they were next to appeal by their prayers to Heaven, and to wait with patience till the Almighty, in whose hands are the hearts of princes, should be pleased to turn them to justice and to mercy. That she inculcated not this doctrine because she herself was interested in its observance, but because it was universally received in all well-governed states, and was essential to the preservation of civil society: that she required them to restore their queen to liberty; and promised, in that case, to concur with them in all proper expedients for regulating the government, for punishing the king’s murderers, and for guarding the life and liberty of the infant prince: and that, if the services which she had lately rendered the Scottish nation, in protecting them from foreign usurpation, were duly considered by them, they would repose confidence in her good offices, and would esteem themselves blameworthy in having hitherto made no application to her.[*] Elizabeth, besides these remonstrances, sent by Throgmorton some articles of accommodation, which he was to propose to both parties, as expedients for the settlement of public affairs; and though these articles contained some important restraints on the sovereign power, they were in the main calculated for Mary’s advantage, and were sufficiently indulgent to her.[**] The associated lords, who determined to proceed with greater severity, were apprehensive of Elizabeth’s partiality; and being sensible that Mary would take courage from the protection of that powerful princess,[***] they thought proper, after several affected delays, to refuse the English ambassador all access to her. There were four different schemes proposed in Scotland for the treatment of the captive queen: one, that she should be restored to her authority under very strict limitations: the second, that she should be obliged to resign her crown to the prince, be banished the kingdom, and be confined either to France or England; with assurances from the sovereign in whose dominions she should reside, that she should make no attempts to the disturbance of the established government: the third, that she should be publicly tried for her crimes, of which her enemies pretended to have undoubted proof, and be sentenced to perpetual imprisonment: the fourth was still more severe, and required that, after her trial and condemnation, capital punishment should be inflicted upon her.[****] Throgmorton supported the mildest proposal; but though he promised his mistress’s guaranty for the performance of articles, threatened the ruling party with immediate vengeance in case of refusal,[v] and warned them not to draw on themselves, by their violence, the public reproach which now lay upon their queen, he found that, excepting Secretary Lidington, he had not the good fortune to convince any of the leaders.
** Keith, p. 416.
*** Keith, p. 427.
**** Keith, p. 420.
v Keith, p. 428.
All counsels seemed to tend towards the more severe expedients; and the preachers, in particular, drawing their examples from the rigorous maxims of the Old Testament, which can only be warranted by particular revelations, inflamed the minds of the people against their unhappy sovereign.[*] There were several pretenders to the regency of the young prince after the intended deposition of Mary. The earl of Lenox claimed that authority as grandfather to the prince: the duke of Chatelrault, who was absent in France, had pretensions as next heir to the crown: but the greatest number of the associated lords inclined to the earl of Murray, in whose capacity they had entire trust, and who possessed the confidence of the preachers and more zealous reformers. All measures being therefore concerted, three instruments were sent to Mary, by the hands of Lord Lindesey and Sir Robert Melvil; by one of which she was to resign the crown in favor of her son, by another to appoint Murray regent, by the third to name a council, which should administer the government till his arrival in Scotland. The queen of Scots, seeing no prospect of relief, lying justly under apprehensions for her life, and believing that no deed which she executed during her captivity could be valid, was prevailed on, after a plentiful effusion of tears, to sign these three instruments; and she took not the trouble of inspecting any one of them.[**] In consequence of this forced resignation, the young prince was proclaimed king, by the name of James VI. He was soon after crowned at Stirling, and the earl of Morton took in his name the coronation oath; in which a promise to extirpate heresy was not forgotten. Some republican pretensions, in favor of the people’s power, were countenanced in this ceremony;[***] and a coin was soon after struck, on which the famous saying of Trajan was inscribed, Pro me; si merear, in me; “For me; if I deserve it, against me.”[****] Throgmorton had orders from his mistress not to assist at the coronation of the king of Scots.[v] 19.
v Keith, p. 430 The council of regency had not long occasion to exercise their authority. The earl of Murray arrived from France, and took possession of his high office. He paid a visit to the captive queen, and spoke to her in a manner which better suited her past conduct than her present condition. This harsh treatment quite extinguished in her breast any remains of affection towards him.[*] Murray proceeded afterwards to break, in a more public manner, all terms of decency with her. He summoned a parliament; and that assembly, after voting that she was undoubtedly an accomplice in her husband’s murder, condemned her to imprisonment, ratified her demission of the crown, and acknowledged her son for king, and Murray for regent.[**] The regent, a man of vigor and abilities, employed himself successfully in reducing the kingdom.
He bribed Sir James Balfour to surrender the Castle of Edinburgh: he constrained the garrison of Dunbar to open their gates; and he demolished that fortress.
But though every thing thus bore a favorable aspect to the new government, and all men seemed to acquiesce in Murray’s authority, a violent revolution, however necessary, can never be effected without great discontents; and it was not likely that, in a country where the government, in its most settled state, possessed a very disjointed authority, a new establishment should meet with no interruption or disturbance. Few considerable men of the nation seemed willing to support Mary, so long as Bothwell was present; but the removal of that obnoxious nobleman had altered the sentiments of many. The duke of Chatelrault, being disappointed of the regency, bore no good will to Murray; and the same sentiments were embraced by all his numerous retainers. Several of the nobility, finding that others had taken the lead among the associators, formed a faction apart, and opposed the prevailing power; and besides their being moved by some remains of duty and affection towards Mary, the malecontent lords, observing every thing carried to extremity against her, were naturally led to embrace her cause, and shelter themselves under her authority. All who retained any propensity to the Catholic religion were induced to join this party; and even the people in general, though they had formerly either detested Mary’s crimes or blamed her imprudence, were now inclined to compassionate her present situation, and lamented that a person possessed of so many amiable accomplishments, joined to such high dignity, should be treated with such extreme severity.[***] ** Anderson, vol. ii. p. 206, et seq.
*** Buchanan, lib. xviii. c. 53.
Animated by all these motives, many of the principal nobility now adherents to the queen of Scots, met at Hamilton, and concerted measures for supporting the cause of that princess.
{1568.} While these humors were in fermentation, Mary was employed in contrivances for effecting her escape; and she engaged, by her charms and caresses, a young gentleman, George Douglas, brother to the laird of Lochlevin, to assist her in that enterprise. She even went so far as to give him hopes of espousing her, after her marriage with Bothwell should be dissolved on the plea of force; and she proposed this expedient to the regent, who rejected it. Douglas, however, persevered in his endeavors to free her from captivity; and having all opportunities of access to the house, he was at last successful in the undertaking.
He conveyed her in disguise into a small boat, and himself rowed her ashore. She hastened to Hamilton; and the news of her arrival in that place being immediately spread abroad, many of the nobility flocked to her with their forces. A bond of association for her defence was signed by the earls of Argyle, Huntley, Eglington, Crawford, Cassilis, Rothes, Montrose, Sutherland, Erroi, nine bishops, and nine barons, besides many of the most considerable gentry.[*] And in a few days, an army, to the number of six thousand men, was assembled under her standard.
Elizabeth was no sooner informed of Mary’s escape, than she discovered her resolution of persevering in the same generous and friendly measures which she had hitherto pursued. If she had not employed force against the regent during the imprisonment of that princess, she had been chiefly withheld by the fear of pushing him to greater extremities against her;[**] but she had proposed to the court of France an expedient, which, though less violent, would have been no less effectual for her service: she desired that France and England should by concert cut off all commerce with the Scots, till they should do justice to their injured sovereign.[***] * Keith, p. 475.
*** Keith, p. 462.
She now despatched Leighton into Scotland to offer both her good offices, and the assistance of her forces, to Mary; but as she apprehended the entrance of French troops into the kingdom, she desired that the controversy between the queen of Scots and her subjects might by that princess be referred entirely to her arbitration, and that no foreign succors should be introduced into Scotland.[*] But Elizabeth had not leisure to exert fully her efforts in favor of Mary. The regent made haste to assemble forces; and notwithstanding that his army was inferior in number to that of the queen of Scots, he took the field against her. A battle was fought at Langside, near Glasgow, which was entirely decisive in favor of the regent; and though Murray, after his victory, stopped the bloodshed, yet was the action followed by a total dispersion of the queen’s party. That unhappy princess fled southwards from the field of battle with great precipitation, and came with a few attendants to the borders of England. She here deliberated concerning her next measures, which would probably prove so important to her future happiness or misery. She found it impossible to remain in her own kingdom: she had an aversion, in her present wretched condition, to return into France, where she had formerly appeared with so much splendor; and she was not, besides, provided with a vessel which could safely convey her thither: the late generous behavior of Elizabeth made her hope for protection, and even assistance, from that quarter;[**] and as the present fears from her domestic enemies were the most urgent, she overlooked all other considerations, and embraced the resolution of taking shelter in England. She embarked on board a fishing-boat in Galloway, and landed the same day at Workington, in Cumberland, about thirty miles from Carlisle, whence she immediately despatched a messenger to London, notifying her arrival, desiring leave to visit Elizabeth, and craving her protection, in consequence of former professions of friendship made her by that princess.
Elizabeth now found herself in a situation when it was become necessary to take some decisive resolution with regard to her treatment of the queen of Scots; and as she had hitherto, contrary to the opinion of Cecil, attended more to the motives of generosity than of policy,[***] she was engaged by that prudent minister to weigh anew all the considerations which occurred in this critical conjuncture.
* Keith, p. 473, in the notes. Anderson, vol. iv. p, 26.
*** Cabala, p. 140.
He represented, that the party which had dethroned Mary, and had at present assumed the government of Scotland, were always attached to the English alliance, and were engaged, by all the motives of religion and of interest, to persevere in their connection with Elizabeth: that though Murray and his friends might complain of some unkind usage during their banishment in England, they would easily forget these grounds of quarrel, when they reflected, that Elizabeth was the only ally on whom they could safely rely, and that their own queen, by her attachment to the Catholic faith, and by her other connections, excluded them entirely from the friendship of France, and even from that of Spain: that Mary, on the other hand, even before her violent breach with her Protestant subjects, was in secret entirely governed by the counsels of the house of Guise, much more would she implicitly comply with their views, when, by her own ill conduct, the power of that family and of the zealous Catholics was become her sole resource and security: that her pretensions to the English crown would render her a dangerous instrument in their hands; and, were she once able to suppress the Protestants in her own kingdom, she would unite the Scottish and English Catholics, with those of all foreign states, in a confederacy against the religion and government of England; that it behoved Elizabeth, therefore, to proceed with caution in the design of restoring her rival to the throne; and to take care, both that this enterprise, if undertaken, should be effected by English forces alone, and that full securities should beforehand be provided for the reformers and the reformation in Scotland: that, above all, it was necessary to guard carefully the person of that princess; lest, finding this unexpected reserve in the English friendship, she should suddenly take the resolution of flying into France, and should attempt by foreign force to recover possession of her authority: that her desperate fortunes and broken reputation fitted her for any attempt; and her resentment, when she should find herself thus deserted by the queen, would concur with her ambition and her bigotry, and render her an unrelenting, as well as powerful enemy to the English government: that if she were once abroad, in the hands of enterprising Catholics, the attack on England would appear to her as easy as that on Scotland; and the only method, she must imagine of recovering her native kingdom, would be to acquire that crown to which she would deem herself equally entitled: that a neutrality in such interesting situations, though it might be pretended, could never, without the most extreme danger, be upheld by the queen; and the detention of Mary was equally requisite whether the power of England were to be employed in her favor, or against her: that nothing, indeed, was more becoming a great prince than generosity; yet the suggestions of this noble principle could never, without imprudence, be consulted in such delicate circumstances as those in which the queen was at present placed; where her own safety and the interests of her people were intimately concerned in every resolution which she embraced: that though the example of successful rebellion, especially in a neighboring country, could nowise be agreeable to any sovereign, yet Mary’s imprudence had been so great, perhaps her crimes so enormous, that the insurrection of subjects, after such provocation, could no longer be regarded as a precedent against other princes: that it was first necessary for Elizabeth to ascertain, in a regular and satisfactory manner, the extent of Mary’s guilt, and thence to determine the degree of protection which she ought to afford her against her discontented subjects: that as no glory could surpass that of defending oppressed innocence, it was equally infamous to patronize vice and murder on the throne; and the contagion of such dishonor would extend itself to all who countenanced or supported it: and that if the crimes of the Scottish princess should, on inquiry, appear as great and certain as was affirmed and believed, every measure against her, which policy should dictate, would thence be justified; or if she should be found innocent, every enterprise which friendship should inspire would be acknowledged laudable and glorious.
Agreeably to these views, Elizabeth resolved to proceed in a seemingly generous, but really cautious manner with the queen of Scots; and she immediately sent orders to Lady Scrope, sister to the duke of Norfolk, a lady who lived in the neighborhood, to attend on that princess. Soon after, she despatched to her Lord Scrope himself, warden of the marches, and Sir Francis Knolles, vice-chamberlain. They found Mary already lodged in the Castle of Carlisle; and after expressing the queen’s sympathy with her in her late misfortunes, they told her, that her request of being allowed to visit their sovereign, and of being admitted to her presence, could not at present be complied with: till she had cleared herself of her husband’s murder, of which she was so strongly accused, Elizabeth could not without dishonor show her any countenance, or appear indifferent to the assassination of so near a kinsman.[*] So unexpected a check threw Mary into tears: and the necessity of her situation extorted from her a declaration, that she would willingly justify herself to her sister from all imputations, and would submit her cause to the arbitration of so good a friend.[*] Two days after, she sent Lord Herreis to London with a letter to the same purpose.
This concession, which Mary could scarcely avoid without an acknowledgment of guilt, was the point expected and desired by Elizabeth: she immediately despatched Midlemore to the regent of Scotland; requiring him both to desist from the further prosecution of his queen’s party, and to send some persons to London to justify his conduct with regard to her. Murray might justly be startled at receiving a message so violent and imperious; but as his domestic enemies were numerous and powerful, and England was the sole ally which he could expect among foreign nations, he was resolved rather to digest the