Europe, France, Spain, Austria, Sweden, being each in the field. But as a foreign marriage would have been regarded with displeasure by the English Government, Mary, on Maitland's advice, conditionally undertook, for the satisfaction of Elizabeth, to accept an English or Scottish noble. The condition was to the effect that in the event of Elizabeth dying without issue, Mary should be declared her heir.

Cecil, as we have seen, had all along been passively obstructive; he had declared against the interview; he had delayed the settlement of the succession; he had spoken in parables. Although the form of the controversy had by this time changed, the same dilatory pleas continued to be put forward. Elizabeth trifled about Mary's marriage as she trifled about her own. She lured Mary on with promises which she did not mean to keep. She led Mary to understand that if her advice about the marriage was followed, Mary's desire for recognition would, in one form or other, be gratified.

I am by no means sure that, even with the ample materials now available, we know the whole truth. It is difficult to unravel these tortuous intrigues. There is a sudden and mysterious change in the attitude of several of the leading actors which I do not think has been entirely explained. But some time before the close of

1564, there are indications that Cecil was becoming actively aggressive. He appears to have felt that the opportunity for which he had waited had at length arrived. The diplomatic farce had been played out, and he could, with such decent reservations as might be prudent, show his hand to his Scottish confederates. Of Knox and the Knoxians he was sure; there had already been misunderstandings between Moray and Maitland and Moray and Mary which might be used to detach James Stuart from his sister's side.

The apple of discord was found in Darnley. Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, was the greatgrandson of Henry VII. Margaret Tudor, a year after Flodden was fought, had married the Earl of Angus, by whom she had one daughter, and this daughter was Darnley's mother. There were doubts about Margaret Douglas's legitimacy; it was said that Angus had been contracted to Lady Traquair, and that the subsequent marriage with Margaret Tudor was irregular, if not invalid. Cecil was nothing loath to utilise any plea of the kind when it would serve his turn; but the objection was never seriously pressed, and Darnley was everywhere recognised-with special cordiality by the great Catholic houses-as the lawful cousin of Mary and Elizabeth. The Lennox Stuarts were themselves closely related to the reigning family; so

that on either side the descent was illustrious: than the young Lord Darnley-for he was only a lad of eighteen-no noble with more of the royal blood of Scotland and England in his veins was to be found in either realm. The Hamiltons, if Mary left no child, would inherit the crown; but the legitimacy of the Hamiltons was as open a question with the curious in genealogies as the legitimacy of the Stuarts; and in spite of a great political and territorial position, they were nowhere popular. From every point of view—save one-Henry Stuart was a desirable parti. The exception, indeed, was serious. Though tall and handsome in person, his mind was feeble, his moral nature undisciplined, his temper intractable and uncertain. Lennox, who had fled to England when Arran went over to France, had been in exile now for more than twenty years. The Scottish earl, in fact, had become an English subject; he had married in England, his children had been born in England, his estates were in England. Although his relations with the English Court, which during Mary Tudor's time had been exceptionally cordial, had become strained, if not unfriendly, on Elizabeth's accession, his eldest son, as the nearest prince of the blood, was already a familiar figure at Greenwich and Westminster. "Yet you like better of yonder long lad," Elizabeth said to Melville

when Robert Dudley was made an earl. The "long lad" was the young Henry Stuart.1

To unravel the tangled skein of Elizabeth's intrigues is, as I have said, no easy matter. It is possible that her tortuous policy was not consistently pursued; she lived, so to speak, from hand to mouth, and she was not restrained by any fastidious scruples, by any weak regard for appearances, from turning her back on herself. In these circumstances, any show of dogmatism, any over-confidence, ill becomes the historian; and I cannot venture to affirm that the explanation which I suggest is more than reasonably probable. The view I take is this;-the policy of procrastination being in the meantime no longer admissible (for neither Mary nor Maitland would consent to further delay), it became Elizabeth's cue to fan the smouldering embers of Scottish disaffection into a flame; and she may have shrewdly calculated that between Robert Dudley and Henry Stuart some cause of quarrel, some ground of offence, was sure to be found. This much at least may be asserted with tolerable confidence; if Mary during these negotiations was not forced into an utterly false position, it was not the fault of Elizabeth.

Elizabeth's conduct (except perhaps on the

VOL. II.

1 Melville's Memoirs, p. 48.

I

plea that the law of self-preservation overrides every other), admits of no excuse. She allowed Lennox to return to Scotland, and warmly recommended him to the good offices of Mary; a little later Darnley received permission to follow his father to the Scottish Court; he had barely crossed the Border when the Scottish Queen was informed with almost insulting directness that even if she condescended to marry Leicester (the English noble selected by Elizabeth), her claim to the English succession would not be admitted. We need not wonder that in these circumstances it should have been the general impression that the marriage with Dudley had never been seriously contemplated by Elizabeth, and that Darnley was sent north to woo, if not to win, his cousin.1

The conviction that Elizabeth was acting in bad faith appears to have been universal at the time. Her own Ministers did not believe that she would resign the one man by whom her heart had been touched. All the contemporary writers were of opinion that her indignation at Mary's choice of Darnley was simulated. Melville, who was much employed in England at the time, expressly says, "The Queen of England began to

1 Lord Robert Dudley was 29th September 1564. created Earl of Leicester on