GREAT SEAL OF ELIZABETH.
Mary at last sent Sir James Melville to London to consult with Elizabeth, in personal interview, fully and candidly as to the person that she would really recommend as her consort. Elizabeth received him at her palace at Westminster, at eight o'clock, in her garden. She asked Melville if his queen had made up her mind regarding the man who should be her husband. He replied that she was just now thinking more of some disputes upon the Borders, and that she was desirous that her Majesty should send my Lord of Bedford and my Lord Dudley to meet her and her Commissioners there. Elizabeth affected to be hurt at Melville naming the Earl of Bedford first. She said that "it appeared to her as if I made but small account of Lord Robert, seeing that I named Bedford before him; but ere it were long she would make him a greater earl, and I should see it done before me, for she esteemed him as one whom she should have married herself, if she had ever been minded to take a husband. But being determined to end her life in virginity, she wished that the queen her sister should marry him, for with him she might find it in her heart to declare Queen Mary second person, rather than any other; for, being matched with him, it would best remove out of her mind all fear and suspicion of usurpation before her death."
Elizabeth immediately carried into effect her word that she would make Dudley an earl, by creating him, whilst Melville was present, Earl of Leicester and Baron Denbigh. "This was done," he says, "with great state at Westminster, herself helping to put on his robes, he sitting on his knees before her, and keeping a great gravity and discreet behaviour; as for the queen, she could not refrain from putting her hand in his neck to tickle him, smilingly, the French ambassador and I standing beside her. Then she asked me 'how I liked him.' I said, 'as he was a worthy subject, so he was happy in a great prince, who could discern and reward good service.' 'Yet,' she replied, 'ye like better of yon long lad,' pointing towards my Lord Darnley, who, as nearest prince of the blood, that day bare the sword before her. My answer was, 'that no woman of spirit would make choice of sic a man, that was liker a woman than a man, for he was lusty, beardless, and lady-faced.' I had no will that she should think I liked him, though I had a secret charge to deal with his mother, Lady Lennox, to purchase leave for him to pass to Scotland."
MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS.
(From a Contemporary Portrait on Wood.)
Lord Darnley, "the long lad," as Elizabeth called him, was the son of that Earl of Lennox who in the time of Henry VIII. joined with Glencairn, Cassillis, and others in attempting to betray Scotland to Henry. For these services, and especially for attempting to betray Dumbarton Castle to the English, he was banished and suffered forfeiture of his estates, but received from Henry VIII., as the promised reward for his treason, the hand of the Lady Margaret Douglas, daughter of Margaret, Queen of Scotland, and sister of Henry VIII., one of the lewdest and most turbulent women of the age. Thus Darnley was the son of Mary's aunt, the Lady Margaret Douglas, and grandson of Elizabeth's aunt, Margaret Tudor. He was thus near enough to have laid claim to the crown of England, and of Scotland too, in case of the failure of issue by the present queens. His nearness to the thrones of both kingdoms seems to have suggested the idea of marrying him to the Queen of Scots, whereby her claim on the English throne would receive added force. Mary was induced to favour the family, her near relatives. She corresponded with the Countess of Lennox, and invited Lennox to return to Scotland, and reversed his attainder. He did not recover the patrimony of Angus, his father, for that was in possession of the powerful Earl of Morton, Chancellor of the kingdom, but Mary promised to make that up to him by other means. Once restored to favour and rank in Scotland, Lennox pushed on the scheme of marrying his son Darnley to the queen. Melville was commissioned to intercede for his return to Scotland, but Elizabeth, who could not be blind to the danger of Darnley's wedding the Queen of Scots, for a time would not listen to it. We may believe too that Cecil did his best to prevent this, for of all his desires, the most earnest was that of the removal of Leicester from the Court, and therefore he used all his eloquence to get Leicester chosen for that honour.
On returning from Hampton Court, Leicester conducted Melville to London by water, and on the way he asked him what the Queen of Scots thought of him as a husband. The answer of Melville, who did not care so nicely to flatter the favourite, was not very complimentary, and thereupon Leicester made haste to assure the Scottish envoy that he had never presumed so much as to think of marrying so great a queen; that he knew he was not worthy to wipe her shoes, but that it was the plot of Cecil to ruin him with both the queens.
Melville, on his return to Edinburgh, assured the Queen of Scots that she could never expect any real friendship from the Queen of England, for that she was overflowing with jealousy, and was made up of falsehood and deceit. These royal courtships and rivalries went on still for some time: Queen Mary finally determined to refuse the Archduke Charles of Austria, probably to avoid giving umbrage to Elizabeth, and Elizabeth received one more suitor in no less a personage than the young King of France. This was a scheme of the busy and intriguing Catherine de Medici, who thought it would be a fine thing to link England and France together by marriage, but Elizabeth was not likely to perpetrate anything so shallow. The king was only fourteen, and Elizabeth replied that "her good brother was too great and too small; too great as a king, and too small, being but young, and she already thirty." Catherine, however, again pressed it, by De Foix the ambassador; but Elizabeth, laughing, said, she thought her neighbour Mary Stuart would suit him better; this, however, was only thrown out because Elizabeth had heard of some such project, which, if real, she would oppose resolutely. But a circumstance now took place which it seems difficult to account for. Having refused to permit Lord Darnley to go to Scotland, lest he should marry the Queen of Scots, and add to her claims on the English throne, all at once her objection seemed to vanish, and in February, 1565, she permitted him to travel to Edinburgh. Darnley was at this time in his twenty-fourth year, tall and handsome, possessing the courtly accomplishments of the age, and free in the distribution of his money. He waited on the young queen at Wemyss Castle, in Fife, and was well received by Mary, who was now about the same age. There appears no doubt but that the marriage had been planned and promoted by the Lennox party, and it is said that Murray encouraged it, thinking that with a young man of Darnley's weak and pleasure-loving character, he could easily retain the power of the State in his hands. Be that as it may, Darnley soon proposed, and was rejected; but Elizabeth, contrary to her own intentions, contributed to alter Mary's resolution. Elizabeth, probably apprehensive that Darnley being present might obtain the queen's goodwill, again sent Randolph to press the marriage with Leicester; on which Mary, bursting into tears, declared that the Queen of England treated her as a child, and immediately favoured the pretensions of Darnley. The marriage took place on the 29th of July, 1565.