CHAPTER ONE.

MAITLAND AND MORAY.

MAIT

AITLAND'S position after the Lords had broken with Mary was one of extreme difficulty. To save the Queen's life was his first object; to bring about some reasonable composition between her and the Scottish Peers was his next. Moray was away-having prudently absented himself, as was his habit; but Maitland was obviously under the impression that he might count on Moray's help. He was quickly undeceived. He saw at once-or at least within. a few days of the Regent's return-that James Stuart, if he did not take his sister's life, would not hesitate to assail her honour. Moray-whose sober gait and homely address cloaked a towering ambition-was bent, for one reason or other, upon an irreparable breach. Maitland believed, on the other hand, that, with the Scottish people divided as they were, years of bloody and bootless war could only be avoided by a policy of

forbearance. To seek a road from which there could be no return, to fight the quarrel out to the bitter end, seemed to him to be folly,-how far better it would be if only by tact and temper some reasonable compromise could be effected! But to save Mary's life he had to yield himself to the stream until he was strong enough to breast it. "Pliant in their direction, unshaken in their aim," was said of the Jesuit fathers; and the moralists who are unwilling to own that under any pressure is a politic pliancy admissible, will conclude that Maitland's conduct during the two years that followed Mary's fall cannot be justified. Nor-though I believe that the more it is examined and the better it is understood, the less will it be condemned-do I altogether defend it. The most honest of men could not have occupied so equivocal a position with perfect honesty. Yet it is abundantly clear from contemporary testimony that no one was deceived. All Scotland knew that Lethington was on Mary's side; all Scotland knew that Lethington held that Moray had played his sister false. Moray himself knew it; and when he had finally and decisively thrown in his lot with Morton, who became, as was said at the time, his "second self," the cordial relations with Maitland necessarily ceased. Maitland, whose scorn of pharisaic pretence scorched like fire, was not misled

by Moray's sophistry; and his tacit condemnation must have been ill to bear. But I anticipate. Moray was still in France, from whence indeed he was only permitted to depart on the understanding that he disapproved of the violence of the disaffected nobles, and that he was going home, as he said, to save his sister's life.

Among the houses where the English envoys were wont to rest themselves during their leisurely progress to the Scottish capital, Whittinghame and Fast Castle were two of the most noted. Whittinghame belonged to a Douglas, Fast Castle to a Hume; and it was at Fast Castle on the rocky shore of the Northern Seathat Throckmorton, despatched in haste by Elizabeth to learn what had happened in Scotland, was met by Lethington. Throckmorton was an old friend of the Scottish Secretary: and as they could communicate freely and frankly with each other, the letters in which his negotiations with the nobles are described, are, to whoever is interested in Maitland's career, of really inestimable value.

It must be premised that the ostensible object of Throckmorton's mission was, as he told the French ambassador at Ware, "to comfort the Queen of Scots in this her calamity, which her Majesty did take for too great an indignity to be shewed to a Queen by her subjects, and to

procure her liberty." Elizabeth's exaggerated expressions of sympathy were not believed by those who knew her best to be entirely genuine; they believed, on the contrary, that Throckmorton was sent not merely to lecture Mary on her misconduct (Elizabeth would have been more than woman had she neglected to improve the occasion), but to quicken the resentment of the insurgent lords against their sovereign. It must be admitted that the tone she adopted in addressing an assembly of proud and turbulent nobles was eminently calculated to bring about such a result, a result, be it observed, entirely consistent with the policy which had been constantly pursued by the English government since Mary's return to Scotland.

"I lodged at Fast Castle that night, accompanied by the Lord Hume, the Lord of Ledington, and James Melville, where I was entreated very well according to the state of the place; which is fitter to lodge prisoners than folks at liberty. As it is very little, so it is very strong." He had conferred with Lethington, and had found that the Lords were naturally suspicious of Elizabeth's motives, and would in the meantime join neither with France nor England. "For they think it convenient to proceed with

1 Throckmorton to Cecil, 2d July 1567.

you both pari passu, for that was my Lord of Ledington's term." The envoy proceeded to enlarge on Elizabeth's good faith; "but at these things the Lord of Ledington smiled and shook his head, and said, 'It were better for us you would let us alone, than neither to do us nor yourselves good, as I fear me in the end it will prove,'- adding, later on, 'If you will do us no good, do us no harm, and we will provide for ourselves." "1

Throckmorton arrived in Edinburgh on July 12th. The next day, being Sunday, was held as a solemn communion and solemn fast; and the scrupulous Morton, declining to transact any secular business on that day, was unable to receive the English envoy. Lethington, however, came to him in the afternoon. During the interview, in which the distrust of Elizabeth's motives was accentuated, Throckmorton gathered that he would not be permitted to see Mary. "I would all our company," Lethington declared, "were as well willing to accomplish your sovereign's intents and desires as I am; for my own part I am but one, and that of the meanest sort, and there be many noblemen, and such as have great interest in the matter; marry, you shall be assured, I will employ my credit as much

1 Throckmorton to Cecil, 12th July 1567.