She was silent for several minutes, then she said:—
“Although I could not accept his Majesty, the king of France, for a husband, yet shall I always revere him as if I were his wife, and ever feel jealous for his honor. I will believe that from some strange accident, which time will perhaps more fully explain, these murders have come to pass. I recommend the Protestants among his people as especially entitled to his Highness’s loving care and protection.”
When this speech was reported to Catherine de Medicis, she smiled grimly and said, “The queen of England can hardly ask greater protection than she herself grants; namely, to force no man’s conscience, but to permit no other worship in the land than that which the ruler himself practises.”
Four years had passed since Mary of Scotland fled to England. Nothing had been satisfactorily determined in regard to her guilt or innocence. An important part of the testimony against her was a casket of her letters to Bothwell. Elizabeth’s commissioners believed these letters to be the work of Mary’s hand, but the English queen refused to permit them to be made public. Whether they were true or were forgeries, she would not allow a queen, a member of her own family, to be declared guilty of murder.
Mary was put under the care of the Earl of Shrewsbury. The sovereign claimed the right to give prisoners of state or guests of the nation to her nobles for watch or entertainment or both. “I am about to trust you as I would trust few men,” the queen said to the earl when she informed him of his new task. He was obliged to accept the charge meekly, but it must have been a heavy burden. If his family moved from one of his manors to another, Mary must go with them. She must have the attendance and treatment due to her rank, but she must be closely watched to prevent, if possible, the sending of letters and messages to any that might conspire to rescue her. Guests of the family must be kept from meeting her. It is no wonder that the earl’s health gave out. He went away for medical treatment, and at once there came a letter from Cecil:—
“The queen has heard that you are gone from home. She says she can scarce believe it, but she bids me know from you what order you left for attendance upon the Queen of Scots. She would not that you should be long away from her, for she feels it only in accordance with her honor that the said queen be honorably attended, and for this she cares as much as for any question of surety.”
The earl did not recover at once, and the queen sent another trusty servant to take charge of Mary. The caring for the prisoner and her retinue was no small matter, for there were so many in her train that her unwilling host felt greatly relieved when Elizabeth commanded that their number be reduced to thirty.
Soon after Mary’s coming to England there was an uprising in the north among the nobles who wished to oblige Elizabeth to acknowledge Mary as her heir. They planned for the Scotch queen to marry an English duke of great power and wealth. This conspiracy was discovered, Mary was kept for a while in closer confinement, and after some time the duke was beheaded. Elizabeth long refused to sign the warrant, and she would pay no attention whatever to the counsels of the royal advisers in regard to the execution of Mary, though one called her “that dangerous woman,” another, “a desperate person.” The archbishop of York advised Elizabeth to “cut off the Scottish queen’s head forthwith;” Cecil was decidedly in favor of this plan, for he believed that it was the only way to secure peace to the kingdom, that so long as Mary lived there would be plots, and that, however closely she was watched, she would find means to communicate with plotters. The rebellion in the north was the only revolt of any importance while Elizabeth was on the throne. It was punished most severely by a vast number of executions.
Not long after the revolt, the Pope excommunicated Elizabeth. He pronounced upon her a solemn curse whether she ate or drank, went in or went out; whatever she did, she was accursed, and her subjects were no longer called upon to obey her. Neither Philip nor the king of France ventured to have this decree published in his kingdom, and in England it seems to have produced no effect whatever. The government was every day becoming stronger. The man who disobeyed did not often escape punishment, and Englishmen in general preferred to be excommunicated by the Pope in Italy than to be executed by Elizabeth in England.
The queen gained steadily in power and in the affections of her subjects. Some of this increase of power was because by good management England had grown richer, some of it because by her shrewd treatment of France and Spain she had won the deference of both. Her means of gaining power were not always to be commended; she was not above maintaining nominally peaceful relations with a king while she was aiding his revolting subjects; and she would favor first one proposed marriage and then another, as it might suit her purposes to win the good will of the country to which the respective wooers belonged. When she was once accused of deriding and mocking whoever sought her hand, she replied with an air of injured innocence that she never “mocked or trifled” with any of those who would have had her in marriage, that she had given them her answer as promptly as the “troubles and hindrances that were happening in the world” would permit. Dishonorable as her behavior sometimes was, it is only fair to Elizabeth to remember that in her times fair dealing among nations was the exception rather than the rule; the country that could gain the advantage over another country was looked upon as having shown the greater ability.