MARY'S MARRIAGE.
All this time Mary has been waiting Elizabeth's good pleasure as to whom she shall marry. Elizabeth finally decided to bestow upon her Scottish sister her own lover Leicester, who "was, perhaps, the most worthless of her subjects; but in the loving eyes of his mistress he was the knight sans peur et sans reproche; and she took a melancholy pride in offering her sister her choicest jewel." (Vol. viii. p. 74.) But Mr. Froude spoils the "melancholy pride" at the next page by telling us that Elizabeth "was so capable of falsehood that her own expressions would have been an insufficient guarantee for her sincerity."
Murray's opposition to Mary's marriage with Darnley was bitter. His ascendency in her councils had culminated in his proposition to have himself legitimated, and that the queen should lease the crown to him and Argyll. Mary's marriage to any one would end all such hopes, and Darnley, moreover, was personally obnoxious to Murray because he had been heard to say, looking at a map of Scotland, that Murray had "too much for a subject." Elizabeth's instructions precisely tallied with Murray's inclinations and interest. He withdrew from court, and would not attend the convention at Perth.