"SIR,-This strange accident (whereof I think before this time you are more than sufficiently advertised) hath given me occasion presently to write unto you, and to reduce to your remembrances some discourses past betwixt us, the time of our being the last year in England. In the which, so far as I could conceive, you and I both agreed in judgment that, howsoever for a time our State here in Scotland might have a course, it could be of no long continuance, unless the dangerous division standing betwixt the Queen and nobility of this realm were brought to some accord, by means of the Queen's Majesty your Sovereign. We could easily espy the necessity of a reconciliation, but the conditions were not so facile to be framed, which might be honorable for the one, and sure for both the parties. As I can remember, we did touch in communication some accidents that might fall out and be stumbling-blocks, as the death of the King, of the Regent, and such like, whereof the peril might grow to us; and whereupon we did collect the necessity of an accord. Now to my great grief one of the points which I ever feared has come to pass, and so we do remain in the briars; at which end to find an issue I see not, unless your mistress take some convenient course both for herself and us: You know the estate of

Christendom, how it doth stand for the present, better than I; You know the state of your mistress's affairs; upon which two you may well collect, which way will best serve her turn, as well presently as hereafter. I dare not presume to prescribe you any certain rule, nor yet am I myself tied to any resolute conclusion; but I trust when you shall remember how the world goeth you shall not think it impertinent yet to consider if there remain any means of an accord. You know of old what reverence I bear to your person, and how highly I do esteem your judgment which maketh me to submit mine unto yours; so that I am rather to be directed by you (if you find any aptness in me) than to trouble you with anything I can invent: Always in me you shall find no change of affection, if either the Queen's Majesty or you will employ me in anything may tend to the conservation of the mutual intelligence betwixt the countries and common wealth of both; Howsoever some have gone about to persuade you of the contrary, I pray you keep one ear for me; and whensoever you will examine my doings, you shall find by my answers to you, that I shall disavow nothing that is true, nor disguise my dealings, but simply avow wheresoever I have been a medlar in anything; as also that I have never been privy to any practice whereby, directly or indirectly, prejudice

hath been meant to the Queen's Majesty, her person or estate.-Yours at commandment,

"From LETH(INGTON) CASTLE

the 26 of January 1569.”

"W. MAITLAND.1

to

The letter which Maitland addressed Leicester in March was much more explicit. He explained that there were two factions in the country, the King's and the Queen's,-the King's being supported by three or four of the meanest among the Earls, by several of the lesser barons, and by the larger burghs; the Queen's by the next of blood, the first in rank, the most ancient and the most opulent of the nobles, and by a great number of the inferior sort throughout the realm. The mandate which Moray held had lapsed, and his removal was daily adding to the number of those who favoured Mary's restoration, and who were already, indeed, more than a match for their rivals. If the Scots were left to themselves, there could be no doubt of the issue. But would they be left to themselves? There were ominous rumours, which, however, he refused to credit, that an English force was to be thrown across the Border to weaken and intimidate the party who were

1 Maitland to Cecil, 26th Jan. 1570. Haynes, 575. VOL. II.

Ꮓ

loyal to their lawful sovereign. Elizabeth would be ill advised to sanction such a proceeding, for it would drive the loyalists, whose alliance was courted both by France and Spain, to seek aid elsewhere. 66 This, for my own part, I abhor, and desire never to see a stranger set foot on this land; yet I know not what point necessity may drive us to; as if men in the middle of the sea were in a ship which suddenly should be set on fire, the fear of burning would make them leap into the sea, and thereafter the fear of the water would make them cleave again to the ship; so for avoiding a present evil, men will many times have recourse to another not less dangerous." If Elizabeth, however, would proceed by treaty-instead of by force-she might reconcile the factions, and save the State. Towards the close of the month, a letter "dyted by the Secretar," and signed by a score or more of the Queen's Lords-Huntly, Argyll, Athol, Home, Erroll, Eglintoun, Crawford, Marischal-was directed to Elizabeth, in which she was assured that she would find it unprofitable if she joined her fortune with "a small portion of this realm,' when she might have the whole at her devotion.2 The conditions of more than one agreement be

1 Maitland to Leicester, 20th 2 Calderwood, ii. 547. March 1570.

tween the Queens, which would be acceptable to all parties in Scotland, were sketched by Maitland; and though in one form or other they involved the restoration of Mary, the most wary of the soldier-statesmen of England could not see that they were "amiss."

Maitland's anxious efforts to pacify the contending factions would probably have been successful, had it not been for Elizabeth. Elizabeth could not afford to see the Scots united, and the smouldering flame of faction. was stirred up by her envoy, who-a bird of evil omen-was again in the northern capital. Though Randolph's crafty counsels and obscure intrigues were keenly resented by moderate politicians like Argyll, Morton lent a ready ear to proposals which flattered his avarice and his ambition. The seeds of division were quickly sown. The English faction met at Morton'seither in Edinburgh or at Dalkeith; while Maitland's house in the Meal Market was the rendezvous of the Lords who were well affected to Mary. "In the month of March the Lords of baith parties comperit in Edinburgh; the Queen's faction lugeit themselves near the Castle, and were callit by the other party in derision The Lords of the Meal Market; for the Secretaire

1 Many "plats" were attri- | of them at least are in his handbuted to Lethington, and two writing.