“She hunts and reads and sometimes she plays on the lute and the virginals.”
“Does she play well?”
“Reasonably well for a queen,” declared Sir James audaciously.
“I wish I could see her,” said Elizabeth.
“If your Grace should command me, I could convey you to Scotland in the dress of a page, and none be the wiser,” suggested Sir James gravely, and Elizabeth did not seem at all displeased with the familiarity.
When the commissioner was again in Scotland, Mary asked what he thought of Elizabeth. “She has neither plain dealing nor upright meaning,” said he, “and she is much afraid that your Highness’s princely qualities will drive her from her kingdom.”
Leicester was refused. Mary was now twenty-three, but she chose for her husband Lord Darnley, a handsome, spoiled child of nineteen. He was a Catholic and after herself the next heir to the English throne. Elizabeth was angry, but she was helpless.
A year later Sir James made a journey from Scotland to London in four days, as rapid traveling as was possible at that time. He called upon Lord Burleigh and gave him an important message. It was evening, and the queen was dancing merrily with her ladies and nobles when Cecil whispered a word in her ear. No more mirth did she show. She sat down, resting her head on her hand. The ladies pressed around her. Suddenly she burst out, “The Queen of Scots has a fair young son, and I am but a barren stock.”
When Elizabeth found that it was impossible to have her own way, she usually accepted the situation gracefully. Sir James came to see her in the morning. She met him with a “volt,” a bit of an old Italian dance, and declared the news was so welcome that it had cured her of a fifteen-days’ illness. She agreed to be godmother to Mary’s son, and as a christening gift she sent a font of pure gold.
The next news from Scotland was that Lord Darnley had been murdered, and that there was reason for believing the Earl of Bothwell, a bold, reckless adventurer, to have been the murderer. Mary had soon tired of the silly, arbitrary boy and had kept her dislike no secret. Two months later she married Bothwell, and there were so many reasons for thinking that she had helped to plan the murder that the Scotch nobles took up arms against her, and imprisoned her in Lochleven Castle, until she could be tried. She was forced to sign a paper giving up all claim to the Scotch throne, and her baby son James, only one year old, was crowned king of Scotland.