CHAPTER VIII

MARY STEWART.

THE spring of the year 1559 marks a notable turning-point in European history. On April 2 the Treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis was signed by France and England, and on the following day by France and Spain. A great war was over. Italy had been freed from her invaders, Savoy had regained her independence, and Calais was lost to England for ever. But far more momentous changes than these were in progress. When the preliminaries of peace were under discussion at Cercamp, Mary Tudor was alive and England was united to the Church of Rome. Before the Treaty was concluded, Parliament was voting Elizabeth to be Supreme Governor of the Church in England, and substituting the Book of Common Prayer for the Mass. Elsewhere, Europe found herself in the face of new problems and a new order of things. Hitherto, as in England, the Reformation, where it was established, had arisen under the initiation or patronage of the sovereign power. Now, a religious movement of another kind, an aggressive militant Calvinism, springing from the people or from a malcontent aristocracy, and clamouring for civil as well as for religious liberty, had been coming to a head simultaneously in Scotland, France, and, in a less developed form, in the Spanish Netherlands. The revolutionary movement seemed contagious, and menaced the authority of the Crown as well as the established religion. It was the sense of this new danger insidiously creeping upon them which impelled the two Catholic Powers to seek for peace, and if possible for an alliance against the common foe-an alliance which was to be cemented by the marriage of Philip of Spain with the daughter of the King of France ; and it was significant that the first article of the treaty between these Powers pledged them to bring about at once the convocation of a General Council " for the reformation and the reduction of the whole Christian Church to a true union and concord."

The task before Catholic Europe was the suppression of the threatened revolt in France, Scotland, and the Netherlands, and the dethronement of Elizabeth as a heretic and illegitimate usurper of the English throne. This last was most imperative of all, for it was already clear, and became clearer as time went on, that the form of religion established by the Queen of England would be a powerful support and encouragement to the struggling sects elsewhere. Yet at this moment England as a European Power was impoverished, humiliated, and helpless. The Queen's title was insecure; she was without a recognised heir; her Catholic subjects were in a numerical majority ; and, moreover, there was an active pretender to her throne in the person of Mary Stewart, recently (1558) married to the Dauphin of France; and Mary's claims seemed irresistible in the eyes at least of those who looked rather to hereditary descent than to parliamentary title. It was very decidedly in the interests of both France and Spain that England should become Catholic. Would, then, these two Powers set aside their former jealousies and unite in placing Mary on the throne of the United Kingdom, or would either Power give a free hand to the other to act alone ? This was the problem which agitated Christendom for nearly thirty years. Round the Queen of Scots, as the representative and symbol of regenerated Catholicism, the contest of diplomatic skill and force of arms raged with remarkable vicissitudes of fortune. The end found Elizabeth the acknowledged champion of Protestant Europe, no longer weak and despised, but snatching from Spain the sovereignty of the seas, and within sight of the long-coveted union of Scotland and England under a Protestant monarch. What was accomplished by Elizabeth through good means or bad in her long conflict with Mary and her supporters has remained intact almost to our own time. The chapter, then, which deals with this important phase of the Wars of Religion rightly bears the name of Mary Stewart. To understand the shifting policy, the conflicting interests and influences which moulded her career and finally led to her destruction, it is necessary to go back to the days of her infancy.

We now turn to the young Queen at the French Court. Her beauty, irresistible charm of manner, and intellectual gifts, made her a universal favourite. " She governs both the King and the Queen," said her uncle the Cardinal of Lorraine. While Scotland was being ruled by her mother in the interests of France, Mary herself became thoroughly French. In April, 1558, she learnt her first lesson in political duplicity. Commissioners arrived from Scotland to ratify the promises of France to support Châtelhérault's claim to the Crown, failing issue of her marriage, and to preserve inviolate the liberties and constitution of Scotland. Mary spoke to the deputies, said Diane de Poitiers, "not as an inexperienced child, but as a woman of age and knowledge." On April 4 she signed certain secret papers. In the first she made over Scotland as a free gift to the King of France in the case of her dying without issue ; and in another she declared that, though, before or after her marriage, she might in compliance with the Scottish Parliament sign papers in a contrary sense, the preceding documents should be taken to declare her genuine mind.

The Parliament was duly held, though no authorisation came from Francis and Mary. The Calvinistic Confession of Faith was adopted, the papal jurisdiction abolished, and the saying or hearing of Mass prohibited, under the penalty of death for the third offence. The religious revolution was effected with scarcely a show of opposition from the prelates of the old Church.

Francis and Mary, humiliated by the unexpected turn of affairs in Scotland, refused to ratify the Treaty. The French troops had been withdrawn, and peace was reestablished. The refusal to ratify could therefore only mean that Mary maintained her pretensions to the English Crown, and so it was understood. On December 5 Francis died and was succeeded by his brother Charles. Mary was no longer Queen Regnant of France ; Catharine de' Medici gained the upper hand ; and the Guises lost their ascendancy. Disliked and suspected by Catharine, Mary for the moment had no home, no powerful party, no policy. The new Pope Pius IV sent her the golden rose, addressing her pathetically as " a rose among thorns.'" Overtures were now made for her return to her kingdom ; and she placed herself, not perhaps without some misgivings, in the hands of her half-brother, the Lord James. Ambitious of power and wealth, but devoted to his creed and to the English alliance, Lord James Stewart was a statesman, shrewd, powerful, and yet moderate ; and he might be expected to support his sister in everything except a conflict with England, or an attempt to overthrow the recent religious settlement in Scotland. Meanwhile Mary, to the increasing annoyance of Elizabeth, resolutely evaded every attempt to induce her to ratify the Treaty of Edinburgh.

Meanwhile, the Queen both amused her Court with the fashions and gaiety of France and attended seriously with her brother to affairs of State. She made progress through her dominions, put down the disorders of the border counties, kept a firm hand upon unquiet nobles, punished and got rid of the troublesome Bothwell, and, what is more surprising, marched with her Council to the north, and there humbled the powerful Earl of Huntly, who had aided his son Lord George Gordon in some resistance to the Queen's authority. Mary, who never seemed in higher spirits, delighted in the campaign and left the leader of the Scottish Catholics dead on the field of Corrichie. But it was this same Huntly, who, by his desertion of the Royalists for the side of the Congregation at a critical moment in the struggle of 1559, had in the mind of Mary of Lorraine turned the scale against the Catholic cause. Thus by one act Mary gratified and enriched her brother, now created Earl of Moray, displayed her impartiality by punishing a professed Catholic, and revenged herself on a traitor. At the end of three years, the English ambassador could report, " the Queen is strictly obeyed, perfectly served, and honoured by all"; and this after the imprudent conduct which lured Chastelard to the rash acts that cost him his life. She had indeed so managed that already her chief counsellors, Moray and Maitland, had drifted away from Knox and the extreme Protestant party. The Reformer himself, who found in her "a proud mind, a crafty wit and indurat heart," was the one rock which she in vain tried to move.

But there was still another candidate in the field. The Countess of Lennox had intended that her son, Lord Darnley, whose claim to the English Succession was next to that of Mary, and who had the advantage of being a naturalised Englishman, should marry the Queen of Scots. The English Catholics, staunch friends of the Lennox line, had not by any means unanimously regarded Mary's claims with favour so long as she was connected with France. They were too much subjected to Spanish influence. They had rather favoured the pretensions of young Darnley; and, if Mary was not to marry the Prince of Spain, what marriage could be more acceptable to the party than one with Darnley ? It would excite no continental jealousies, introduce no foreigner into the government, and would be the best guarantee for the restoration of Catholicism and the Union of the Crowns. Elizabeth, who had set one suitor against another, while fearing all, had lastly proposed her own favourite Leicester. Mary would not have disregarded even this match, had it been attended with the recognition of her right of succession, but this she could never obtain. To accede to such a request would on the part of Elizabeth have been to cut the ground from under her own feet. It would, as the Spanish ambassador saw, manifestly have resulted in a rising of the English Catholics and the reintroduction of their religion by force.

On July 29 Mary publicly celebrated her marriage. Her opportunity had come. The first overt act of aggression had been on the side of her opponents. She was confronted with insurrection within her kingdom and with invasion from England. She acted with vigour, issued proclamations declaring her innocence of making any alteration in religion, solicited aid from the Pope and King of Spain, obtained money from the latter, and again assured the Pope that she and her husband would defend the Catholic faith to the utmost of their power. She recalled Bothwell, whom she made Lieutenant-general of the Southern Marches, restored George Gordon to his father's dignities, and took the Catholic Atholl to her counsels. She marched armed at the head of the troops to meet the insurgents with such alacrity that Moray and his friends, without risking a conflict, fled early in October into England, leaving her mistress of the situation. Elizabeth, seeing the weakness of the insurgents, dared not openly intervene. Castelnau let her know that, if she crossed the border, Prance would be bound to come to Mary's aid. The King of Spain was for the first time making a decided move in her favour. When Moray therefore appeared before Elizabeth in London, she, in the presence of the French ambassador, reprimanded him for his rebellion and disavowed all sympathy with his action.

The murder of Riccio, " an action worthy of all praise " in the mind of Knox, was, however, the deathblow to Mary's schemes. " All the wise ordinances " (wrote de Silva, now Spanish ambassador in London) " made by the good Queen with regard to religion have been upset, and it will be difficult to establish them again." The Bishop of Dunblane was on his way to Rome, conveying to Pius V the obedience and submission of the King and Queen and their earnest request for aid, when the news of the disaster reached him. He could only pray the Pope to excuse the Queen from attempting any alteration at present. The enthusiastic Pope praised in conclave this " woman with a man's heart," granted her 20,000 crowns, and commissioned Laureo, Bishop of Mondovi, to go into Scotland as his Nuncio, declaring that if possible he would go himself in person and gladly spend his blood and life in her service.

Mary now reverted to a policy of conciliation. Moray returned to her councils together with Atholl, Huntly, and Bothwell ; and she even tried to win the good-will of the ministers by making better provision for their maintenance. Once more matters went smoothly for a while. On Wednesday, June 19, the Queen gave birth to her son James. Her position in England was thus greatly strengthened. She renewed her protestations of loyalty to Rome, and promised to bring up the child as a Catholic, while she invited Elizabeth to be his godmother, and opened negotiations with her for the recognition of her own rights and those of her son. Elizabeth with difficulty avoided a serious quarrel with both Houses of Parliament by her refusal to discuss either the matter of the succession or her own marriage. Instinctively, she saw that her security lay in remaining as she was, yet free to use any proposal of marriage as a convenient political instrument. Her best advisers, moreover, recognised that to name Mary as her successor would be to seal her own doom.

There could be no doubt whose deed it was. Placards on the city walls, and voices in the night, proclaimed Bothwell and his friends as the murderers. The question in everybody's mouth was, had the Queen any part in the crime ? Suspicions which naturally arose were confirmed by her strange conduct. She acted as if her main endeavour was to evade enquiry and shield the culprit. She seemed to have lost all energy and discretion. Her best friends were amazed at her indifference and inaction. Archbishop Beton wrote to her plainly what was said of her complicity, and implored her to see that justice was done ; otherwise it were better that she lost life and all. Morette, the ambassador of Savoy, who had just come from Edinburgh, could not conceal from de Suva his suspicions that the Queen had known of and consented to the plot. The Catholics in England were divided, and all were disheartened.

Catholic Europe was in despair at the depths to which their favourite had fallen. The Bishop of Dunblane in vain pleaded at the Court of France that the marriage was brought about by destiny rather than by free choice. His excuses were contemptuously rejected. The Venetian ambassador, Correro, felt that the Catholic religion had now no hope of ever again raising its head in Scotland. De Suva was alienated and distrustful. The Bishop of Mondovi had returned to Italy, recalled by the Pope. His mission had been a failure. He had never been allowed to set foot in Scotland. From Paris he had proposed to the Queen, as a test of her sincerity and as a sovereign remedy for her evils, that she should cut off the heads of six of her chief councillors, including Moray and Lethington. Mary had resolutely refused to do anything of the . kind ; yet the Nuncio still entertained some hope that another papal mission might be more successful. On receipt of the news of the Both-well marriage this shadow of a hope vanished. " With this last act, so dishonourable to God and herself," he wrote to the Cardinal Secretary of State, " the propriety of sending any sort of envoy ceases. One cannot as a rule expect much from those who are subject to their pleasures." Mary's best apologists could only attribute her blind passion to love potions administered by Bothwell.

The next step of the confederates was a difficult one. If she had consented to a divorce from Bothwell, many would have been willing to restore the government to her. But she acted as if passionately attached to her husband ; and severer counsels prevailed. Knox, who had retired from the country since the Riccio murder, now reappeared on the scene. In a General Assembly held on June 25 the voice of the Church was heard with effect. The Queen was herself now denounced from the pulpit as a murderess ; and the populace clamoured for her trial and punishment. On July 16 she was roughly compelled-the alternative 'being certain death-to sign a deed of abdication and to nominate Moray, then absent in France, as Regent. On the 29th the young James was crowned King by the Bishop of Orkney, Knox preaching the sermon. The revolution was complete. It was an act of defiance to the Catholic sovereigns and to the Queen of England. The Protestant party was acting for the first time with stern independence. Elizabeth's efforts on behalf of Mary were unavailing ; and it was clearly intimated to Throckmorton, the English ambassador, that any act of intervention on her part would be the signal for Mary's execution.

The need came, and the help was claimed, in an unexpected manner. On May 2, 1568, after ten months of confinement in Lochleven, Mary effected her escape. She revoked her abdication, and asked her lawyers how she could obtain her restoration. They replied, by Parliament or by battle. " By battle let it be," she answered. Joined by the Hamiltons and others she met Moray at Langside, fled defeated from the battlefield, and on the 16th crossed the Solway into England.

The famous Conference was to be held at York. Norfolk, known to be a friend of Mary, was, with the Earl of Sussex, the Chief Commissioner, on Elizabeth's side. Lesley, the Bishop of Ross, and Lord Herries were the principal advisers of Mary ; and Maitland, who accompanied Moray, also gave her secret assistance. Moray came prepared with the mysterious Casket Letters, purporting to contain in Mary's own handwriting damning evidence of her having lured Darnley to his doom, together with her contract of marriage with Bothwell in Huntly's hand, signed by herself and by Bothwell before his acquittal of the murder. But Moray was fearful of taking a false step by producing evidence, which, if not fatal to Mary, would surely be fatal to himself; and, having had bitter experience of Elizabeth's caprice, he was doubtful whether she might not yet restore Mary in spite of the Casket. Others also were implicated in the crime, and the consequences of opening the letters could scarcely be foreseen. A sight of the documents, or rather of an English translation of them, was furtively procured for Mary by Maitland. She implored him, according to Lesley's confession, " to stay these rigorous proceedings." He accordingly worked in her interests for some compromise.

The Casket Letters now disappear from history. The question of their genuineness is beset with difficulties which in the absence of the originals it may be now impossible ever to solve. The casket was discovered upon one of Both well's servants, June 20, 1567. The earliest references to the form and contents of the documents which it contained are contradictory or inaccurate. On their evidence, however, the Scottish Parliament on December 15, 1567, declared Mary to be guilty of murder and to have forfeited her Crown. The tendency of recent discovery and research, rendering at least no longer tenable certain positions maintained by former opponents of their genuineness, is to suggest a large foundation of Mary's actual writing craftily altered or interpolated. This inference, based upon both internal and external evidence, would also explain in some measure Mary's manifest desire rather to keep the letters out of sight than to attempt the demonstration of their falsity to the ruin of her accusers. The hesitation or silence of Mary's supporters points to the same conclusion. Morton, in his declaration at Westminster (December 29, 1568), first published in full in 1889, asserted that the letters were " sichted," that is examined, on the morning after their discovery, in the presence of Atholl and Semple, both Catholics, as well as of Hume and others who had joined Mary's side, besides Maitland himself, who would be a most competent judge of their validity. It is strange that none came forward to dispute the facts alleged ; strange that Huntly did not deny his writing of Mary's contract of marriage with Bothwell ; strange, too, that, if the letters were forged, there should remain no clue to the forger or to the date at which such forgery was accomplished.

The interest of the letters is, however, mainly biographical. If rejected as forgeries, they leave the question of Mary's innocence or guilt just as it was when the friendly Du Croc, who knew the Queen and all the circumstances well, reported to the French Court that " the unhappy facts are too well proved." If genuine, they would exhibit Mary as something far worse than an ill-used wife conniving at the murder of a worthless husband who threatened to be her ruin. The letters had no effect upon international politics. The revolution at home was virtually effected before the discovery of the Casket. The judgment of foreign Courts was formed independently of its disclosures.

In the ten years which elapsed since Elizabeth's succession the hopes entertained from her policy of compromise had hardly been realised. The Catholic majority of her subjects had by no means been reconciled. They were indeed without ecclesiastical leaders, without a definite policy, apparently crushed and helpless ; but latent among them was a formidable power which at any moment might be evoked by favourable circumstances. There were divisions, too, within the Queen's Council. When she ascended the throne she had instinctively made her choice of Sir William Cecil (created Lord Burghley in 1571) as her chief secretary. Cecil was her mainstay in both home and foreign affairs. As if conscious of her own weakness and vacillation, and of the fact that her own private sentiments in religious and other matters were often opposed to those which her better judgment approved for the national welfare, she leant upon the strong man to keep her straight. With Cecil, she introduced into her Council Cecil's brother-in-law, Sir Nicolas Bacon, as Keeper of the Great Seal, Francis Russell, Earl of Bedford, and others favouring the Reformation. On the other hand, her personal favourite, and for many years her evil genius, was Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester. The Council became divided between friends and enemies of Cecil. The country at large was exasperated by the Queen's refusal to marry; and the dread of a disputed succession drove men on all sides to look favourably on the claims of Mary Stewart, and to forget her past delinquencies.

Such was the condition of affairs at the moment when, in spite of a significant warning from Elizabeth, the Duke of Norfolk was secretly aiming at a marriage with the imprisoned Queen. A strong conservative party, attached to the old alliance with Spain, hostile to Cecil and to the advanced Protestants, and desirous of settling the Succession by Act of Parliament upon Mary, supported Norfolk's project as the best guarantee of peace, while the Catholics were led to expect the Duke's conversion and the restoration of their faith. Yet it could scarcely be expected that Elizabeth's very natural opposition to the marriage of a subject with a claimant to her throne-for such Mary continued to be- could be overcome without a revolution ; and revolt would not have been thought of but for the changed relations between England and Spain.

The complete collapse of this ill-prepared and ill-supported rebellion did not, however, free Elizabeth from grave anxiety. It was clear that Philip was but biding his time. The Pope, who had egged on the northern Earls, was bestirring himself. The French King, again victorious over the Huguenots, was preparing to assist the Queen of Scots, when, to the deep sorrow of Elizabeth and the unconcealed joy of his sister, the Regent Moray was struck down by an assassin (January, 1570). A fierce civil war broke out in Scotland. Dumbarton and Edinburgh Castles were becoming in effect outposts in the great international war of religion which was raging round Antwerp or La Rochelle. The partisans of Mary, now comprising Maitland, Kirkcaldy, and the greater part of the barons, if left to themselves might well have gained the ascendancy. In February Pius V, without consulting Philip, issued his long-premeditated Bull, excommunicating Elizabeth and absolving her subjects from their allegiance. It was the supreme effort of the Counter-Reformation. Elizabeth had good ground for alarm. She quickly despatched troops into Scotland, by her influence secured the Regency for the Earl of Lennox (July, 1570), and in fear of France resumed at Chatsworth negotiations for Mary's restoration. Mary even agreed to ratify the Treaty of Edinburgh, to send her son as a hostage to England, and never to marry without Elizabeth's consent. Such conditions were calculated to ensure the failure of the negotiation. France, Spain, and the Scots, as before, made objections; and Mary's hopes, raised to the highest point, were again doomed to disappointment.

The successive blows thus aimed at Elizabeth-the Northern rising of 1569, the Bull of 1570, and the Ridolfi conspiracy of 1571-were followed (as has been said) by the Treaty of Blois (which was in effect an abandonment of Mary's cause by France) ; and almost at the same time (April 1, 1572) came the capture of Brill by the " Beggars of the Sea," which laid the foundations of the independence of the United Provinces. France was thus detached from Spain as well as from Scotland ; and Spain, realising more keenly than ever that the pacification of the Netherlands depended upon the subjection of England, was for the present helpless against her.

Elizabeth from the beginning of her reign had rigorously but cautiously enforced the Acts of Supremacy and Uniformity passed by her first Parliament (1559). They made the practice of the Catholic religion impossible. The immediate effect was to drive from the country the most conscientious of the Catholic clergy and thus to deprive the laity of their natural leaders and guides. The aristocracy had no policy. Strange to say, little or no aid or instruction came from Rome; while the mass of the adherents of the old faith were helpless, there was little need to resort to extreme measures. Yet, if they but moved a little finger Cecil, ever on the watch, had means to crush them under his heel. Witness the apparent trivial incident of the miracle of St Donats. A few months after the Queen's accession an oak-tree in the park of Sir Thomas Bradleigh reft asunder by lightning disclosed in its centre the figure of a cross. Devout Catholics, taking this to be a miracle of good augury, made drawings of the cross and distributed them among their friends. The facts were brought to the knowledge of the Council in the spring of 1561 ; and Cecil at once despatched a commission of enquiry into Glamorganshire to take evidence on the spot, and to bring the piece of wood containing the cross to London. A raid was made on the houses of Sir Thomas' friends ; and after a strict examination a number of gentlemen and ladies were thrown into prison for having had mass said for them in secret. There was reported to be current among Catholics some hope that Elizabeth would receive a papal Nuncio. In any case Cecil " thought it necessary to dull the papists' expectations by rebating of their humours." The letters and submissions of the offenders exhibit them as paralysed with fear.

Meanwhile, in the interval between the third and fourth civil wars of France, Catherine, jealous of Coligny's influence over the King and fearful of the Huguenots, prevailed on her son to be rid of all his Protestant enemies by one blow. The Massacre of St Bartholomew (August 23, 1572) filled England and Scotland with horror and dismay. The triumphant acclamation with which the news was received by the Pope and Catholic Princes led to the belief that the massacre had been premeditated as part of a scheme for the extermination of Protestants everywhere. The recent alliance with France scarcely survived the shock. Yet the massacre was a suggestive lesson to Elizabeth. Would not she at least be justified in ridding herself of her single enemy-that one personage who in the eyes of the nation already merited death? She accordingly proposed secretly to Morton and to the Regent Mar, who had succeeded Lennox, that Mary should be placed in their hands for immediate execution. The design was frustrated only by the death of Mar (October 28, 1573).

During this period, however, a grave danger momentarily menaced England and gave new hope to the friends of Mary. Don John of Austria, who had succeeded the more conciliatory Requesens in the government of the Netherlands (1576), had none of Alva's fear of provoking war with Elizabeth. Ambitious himself of a crown and egged on by the Pope, he arrived with a fixed determination to take his army over to England, to marry the Queen of Scots, and to place her on Elizabeth's throne ; and now Mary, altogether Spanish, as if mindful of what she had done twenty years before for Henry II of France, drew up a will (February, 1577) by which she made over all her rights in England and elsewhere to the Catholic King, or to anyone of his relations whom he might please to name with the consent of the Pope. But Philip was jealous of his half-brother's ambitious projects ; and, as the Netherlands were now strong enough to insist on the withdrawal of Don John's army, England was once more saved from a formidable attack.

Mendoza, then Spanish ambassador in London, was at the same time secretly treating with six English Catholic noblemen, making use of missionary priests as his agents, and in active correspondence with Mary, who, as he wrote to Philip, April, 1582, is " virtually the mainspring of the war, without whose opinion and countenance Lennox and others will do nothing." Presently the Duke of Guise, the Archbishop of Glasgow, Dr Allen, the Provincial of the French Jesuits, and the papal Nuncio, met in conference in Paris to discuss the details of the campaign. Parsons assured them of his own knowledge that the English Catholics were ready to rise the moment the standard was raised in Scotland. It was now agreed that Guise should be the commander of the forces ; and it is significant of the political chaos in France that the King was by no means to be admitted to the secret. Crichton was despatched to Rome, to gain the approval and pecuniary aid of the Pope; and Parsons carried the plan to Philip. The project met with a temporary check by the Raid of Ruthven (August 22, 1582), through which James became a prisoner in the hands of the partisans of the Kirk and the English interest; and Lennox was soon forced to fly the country. When the King recovered his liberty (June, 1583), the enterprise, at the earnest solicitation of Mary, was renewed, the plan being only so far modified that the principal invading force was to land on the coast of England instead of Scotland. Dr Allen and the energetic Father Parsons, who flitted from Court to Court under the disguise of " Melino," continued to be the moving spirits in the affair. " Meanwhile, as in the Ridolfi conspiracy, the assassination of Elizabeth became a prominent feature of the enterprise. The papal Nuncio reported to the Cardinal of Como, and the Spanish agent Tassis informed Philip, that Guise and Mayenne had found an English Catholic ready to kill the Queen for 100,000 francs; and half of that sum was deposited in a box in the custody of Archbishop Beton (May, 1583). But Elizabeth's life seemed charmed. The project came to nothing. Mary, according to Parsons, was induced unfairly to lay the blame of the failure on the Duke of Guise and the Archbishop for omitting to supply the assassin with the promised bribe; but, as the Jesuit subsequently explained, " the party in question was a worthless fellow who would do nothing."

In the spring of 1586 the English adherents of Mary, who were in the secret of the Spanish enterprise, and who believed that no invasion could succeed as long as Elizabeth lived, became desperate. Savage, an officer who had served under Parma, vowed to take her life. Ballard, a seminary priest, went to France to discuss the new plan with Mendoza, then Ambassador at the Court of France, who approved, and suggested that Cecil, Walsingham, and Hunsdon should also be killed. Antony Babington, a gentleman of good family and fortune, who became the leader in the plot, associated five other assassins with Savage, and undertook to rescue Mary as soon as the deed was done. Walsingham meanwhile held all the threads of the conspiracy in his own hands. His ubiquitous spies, the chief of whom was the priest Gilbert Gifford, had won the confidence of Morgan and other devoted adherents of Mary ; and every secret of the conspirators was known. Walsingham resolved to force the hand of Elizabeth by possessing himself of proof of Mary's complicity in the projected assassination. With the aid of Gifford and the ingenious decipherer Phelippes he intercepted, copied, and forwarded every letter which passed between Mary and the confederates. Morgan had prudently let Mary know that Ballard had been warned "not to deal with her as long as he followed affairs which he and others have in hand which tend to do good, which I pray to God may come to pass " ; and less prudently in a postscript to Mary's secretary Curie, he wrote, " there be many means in hand to remove the beast which troubleth all the world." Finally, throwing aside all caution he advised Mary to open communications with Babington, who wrote to her an account of the whole plan. She replied in a long and able letter (July 17-27) showing a masterly grasp of all the necessary details to be considered, adding : " Affairs being thus prepared, then shall it be time to set the six gentlemen to work."

Her unfortunate rival, with a personality more attractive and gifts more brilliant if less solid, came into her kingdom virtually a foreigner ; and a foreigner she remained-alien above all to the stern religious creed which she found there established. Her interests and ideals were those of the Guises. Her heart was not in her own country, but elsewhere; and the main object of her ambition, the Crown of her neighbour, she pursued with an all-absorbing passion, save for the moment when a more human passion, her infatuation for Bothwell, turned her aside on the path which led to her destruction. Every folly committed by her seemed to meet with an instant Nemesis. At her best she was surrounded by statesmen and advisers who could but give her a half-hearted support; and it was her ill fate to be betrayed or abandoned in turn by all in whom she had at any time put her trust-her brother, her husband, and her son. When all hope was lost, she represented herself as the victim of religious persecution ; and sentiment has invested her pitiable sufferings and tragic end with the halo of martyrdom. Her evil destiny seemed to pursue her party and her cause beyond her grave. Disaster and humiliation befell her one avenger among the Catholic Princes. Her death broke up the unity and power of her English followers. Priests and laymen alike were divided into factions, Spanish and Scottish, Jesuit and Secular, whose quarrels brought disgrace upon the Catholic mission ; and presently the sovereignty of the United Kingdom of England and Scotland, which she had coveted for herself and her Church, was to fall to the Protestant son whom she had done her best to disown and disinherit.