Parliament was dissolved when Elizabeth called upon the bishops to conform themselves to the laws which had recently been re-established. All refused with the exception of Kitchen, bishop of Llandaff, formerly a Benedictine, whose habit it was to adopt at all times the religious belief of his sovereign. A certain number of dignitaries of the Church followed the example of the bishops, who found among the lower orders of the clergy very few adherents. Several bishoprics were vacant at the accession of Elizabeth. She gave pensions to a few of the clergy who retired on account of their religion, and provided for all the livings by placing in them the greater number of the exiles driven forth by the fanaticism of Mary. The Church of England was for ever lost to the Holy See, whatever hopes the Catholics might conceive in the future. The two statutes generally known under the names of the "Act of Supremacy," and the "Act of Uniformity," debarred from all public offices the conscientious Catholics who refused to recognise the religious authority of the queen, and at the same time prohibited the practice of their worship. Then began for the Catholics a silent, minute, continual persecution, penetrating into families, maintained by espionage, always vexatious, sometimes outrageous, mingling with politics and drawing therefrom the pretext for tyranny. This oppression did not break forth at first; it was in 1561 that Sir Edward Waldegrave and his wife were sent to the Tower for having entertained in their house a Catholic priest. The bishops themselves were at first simply deposed; but their intemperate zeal having led some, towards the end of 1559, into presenting a petition which implored the queen to follow the example of her sister, of blessed memory, Elizabeth, greatly incensed, sent the petitioners to prison. Bonner was detained there until his death. The other prelates were at length released and even installed, sometimes with the Protestant bishops who had succeeded them, at other times with the rich clergy, to the great displeasure of both. The monasteries, recently reopened by Mary, were once more closed, and the crown again took possession of the property of the Church, which had been returned under the last reign. In the main, and notwithstanding a few modifications, the work of Cranmer and Edward VI. was restored. The opinion of the majority of the nation, and prudent policy, had overcome, in the mind of Elizabeth, her personal tastes and tendencies.
Political motives were about to unite her more and more with the Protestants of Europe. When she learned of the impertinent pretension of the dauphin to the title of King of England, she exclaimed, "I will take a husband who shall cause the head of the King of France to ache; he does not know what a rebuff I intend to give him." The queen had attributed to her the intention of uniting herself to the Earl of Arran, son of the former regent of Scotland, now known under the French title of Duke of Chatelleraut, heir presumptive to the throne of Scotland after the Stuarts. The Earl of Arran had ardently embraced the Protestant faith, and was in London in 1559, at the moment when Mary Stuart mortally offended "her good sister of England." He had a secret interview with the queen at Hampton Court, and immediately set out, under an assumed name, for Scotland, accompanied by Randolph, a confidential emissary of Elizabeth. The condition of Scotland had become both complicated and aggravated by the death of the King of France, Henry II. Francis II., the husband of Mary Stuart, had determined, it was said, to expend all the property of France, if necessary, to put an end to the insurrection. It was to the support of the insurgents that the Protestant policy, then represented by Cecil, wished to pledge Queen Elizabeth, in order to bring about the marriage with the Earl of Arran, who had become King of Scotland, and that union of the two crowns which Henry VIII. had contemplated by the marriage of Edward VI. with Mary Stuart.
Nowhere had the Catholic Church offered so many vulnerable points to the Reformers as in Scotland, for nowhere were the clergy so corrupt. The Protestant doctrines, in their most austere and aggressive forms, had made such great progress there, that Knox may be regarded as the real chief of the insurrection which everywhere held the regent, Mary of Guise, in check. The violence of religious passions had already occasioned the destruction of a great number of churches and monasteries; the greater part of the nobility had abandoned the regent, to form themselves into a "Congregation of the Lord," under the direction of Lord James Stuart, an illegitimate son of James V., and a brother of Mary Stuart. The troops from France alone allowed the regent to struggle against the insurgents; but the reinforcements were numerous and efficient. A French garrison had taken possession of Leith and threatened Edinburgh, when the agents of Queen Elizabeth set themselves to work, Randolph in Scotland, Sir Ralph Sadler at Berwick, where he was officially entrusted to negotiate with the delegates of the regent concerning the question of outrages upon the borders. The negotiations with the Lords of the Congregation were taking their course, still profoundly secret. Elizabeth was naturally parsimonious, and she had found the finances of England in great disorder. At the instigation of Cecil, however, she sent to Sadler considerable sums for the support of the malcontents. No blows had been struck since the recent arrangement between the regent and the great noblemen, and it was not until the month of October, 1559, that the insurgents laid siege to Leith. Hitherto Elizabeth had resolutely denied all relations with the Lords of the Congregation; but one of her agents were arrested, having in his possession a sum of two thousand pounds sterling. The hesitations and doubts of the queen often impeded the action of Cecil. She had no liking for the ardent Presbyterians. Knox, in particular, was odious to her; she had never forgiven him for a pamphlet upon female government, entitled, The First Blast of the Trumpet against the monstrous Regiment of Women, "I like not the audacity of Knox, whom you have well brought down in your answer," wrote Cecil to Sadler; "it does us no good here, and I suppress it as much as I can; however, fail not to send me what he writes." The subsidies did not suffice to maintain courage and discipline in the Scottish army. Being repulsed before Leith, the Lords of the Congregation evacuated Edinburgh, and retired during the night to Stirling. Elizabeth resolved to adopt more efficacious measures. On the 27th of February, 1560, through the agency of Maitland of Lethington, formerly secretary of the queen regent, and who had gone over to the insurgent party, she concluded a treaty of alliance with the great Scottish noblemen, for the whole duration of the marriage of the Queen of Scotland with the King of France, undertaking not to lay down arms as long as the French should remain in Scotland. An English army crossed the frontier, under the orders of Lord Grey of Wilton; an English fleet, commanded by Winter, entered the Firth of Forth; and the Lords of the Congregation having assembled all their forces, siege was laid to Leith, on the 6th of April. The siege was still in progress on the 10th of June, when the Queen Regent, Mary of Guise, expired in Edinburgh Castle, where Lord Erskine had received her, as upon neutral ground. This death precipitated the conclusion of a peace desired by both parties. The French surrendered Leith, and went aboard their vessel again, thus delivering Scotland from their presence; and a council of twelve noblemen, chosen partly by the queen, partly by Parliament, was entrusted to govern the country in the absence of the sovereign. The court of France recognized the right of Queen Elizabeth to the throne, and her good sister Mary gave up bearing the arms of England. The treaty of Edinburgh secured in Scotland the supremacy of Protestantism, which had become the religion of the majority of the population. The vote of the Scottish Parliament, in the month of August, 1560, officially severed all bonds with the court of Rome, by adopting a confession of faith drawn up by Knox and his disciples, according to the doctrines of Calvin, and striking the ecclesiastical organization at its basis, no less than the religious practices of Catholicism. Matters stood thus, when the Parliament deigned to think of the assent of the queen. Sir James Sandilands, formerly Prior of the Hospitallers, was dispatched to France to demand a ratification, which was immediately refused. It was said that the uncles of Mary, the Duke of Guise and the Cardinal of Lorraine, were making preparations for an invasion in Scotland, when the young King of France, Francis II., expired suddenly, on the 5th of December, 1560, after the reign of seventeen months. The power of Mary Stuart was suddenly eclipsed; the bright morning of her life was about to disappear behind a dark cloud heavy with misfortunes and with crimes.
While Mary, but lately queen of France, was preparing to return to her cold and rugged country, Elizabeth was keeping in check the suitors who were contending for her hand. The King of Sweden, who had been ambitious of the honour of becoming her husband when he was but heir apparent, and when she was watched at Hatfield by the spies of her sister, despatched his brother, the Duke of Finland, to renew his offer. The ambassador was courteously received, and treated with distinction by the queen; but scarcely had he been installed by order of Elizabeth in the bishop's palace at Southwark, when the King of Denmark sent his nephew, the Duke of Holstein, as a claimant to the same honour. "It is said that the Archduke Philip is on the way here," wrote Cecil, "without pomp, and, so to say, in secret. The King of Spain supports him warmly; I would, in God's name, that her Majesty might accept one, and that the rest should be honourably sent back." The Archduke Charles, son of the Emperor Ferdinand, did not come; like Elizabeth herself, he hesitated. The King of Sweden was not easily put off with refusals, but the Duke of Finland was obliged to quit without having obtained anything. The Duke of Holstein at least carried away, for his uncle, the Order of the Garter, and a pension for himself. The queen was making sport of all these suitors, taking pleasure in keeping them upon the alert by her coquetry, but more tenderly concerned for a young nobleman of her court than with all the princes who were seeking her alliance. For several months past the attention of the courtiers had been excited by the signal favour which she manifested towards Lord Robert Dudley, son of the Duke of Northumberland and brother of Lord Guilford Dudley, husband of Lady Jane Grey. The passing fancy which Elizabeth had displayed for Sir William Pickering and Lord Arundel, had given place to a more durable attachment. Lord Robert, subsequently known in history under the title of the Earl of Leicester, had taken possession of the heart of the queen. He nourished the hope of marrying her, but he had a wife, whom he kept in a secluded spot in the country. One day she fell down a staircase and broke her neck, without any one being a witness of the accident. Court rumours were unfavourable to Lord Robert. He was loudly accused of having caused the death of his wife, and the queen felt how much public opinion in England was opposed to her desire to marry the man whom she loved. Mary Stuart had returned to Scotland. Elizabeth, still uneasy at the claims of her rival to the crown, had tartly refused an authorization to pass through her dominions, which Mary had asked for, and the bitter feeling which had always existed between the princesses had only increased. The Lords of the Congregation had invoked the support of the Queen of England, when Mary Stuart refused to ratify the separation which they had determined upon between Scotland and Rome. Upon leaving, with regret, that France in which she had been reared, the young queen had scarcely set foot in her kingdom when she encountered the violent opposition of her subjects to the worship which she had sincerely at heart. Her Roman Catholic friends, among others the Bishop of Ross, had urged her to land in the Highlands, and surrounding herself with the forces of the Earl of Huntley, a fervent Catholic, to repair at once to Edinburgh. She rejected this clumsy proposal, which placed her at the outset in contention with the majority of the nation, and the plaudits of the population greeted her at Leith, on the 19th of August; but, on the first Sunday after her arrival when the fierce Protestants saw the altar prepared in Holyrood Chapel, an outcry was raised against the mass, and Lord James Stuart was obliged to remain before the door of the chapel, with his sword drawn during the whole time of the service, in order to prevent any scandal. He did not contrive to prevent a visit from Knox. The ardent and indomitable preacher repaired to the residence of the queen, now urging her by formal solicitations, now loading her with reproaches. Mary wept; but she refused to listen any longer to Knox, and the Reformer acquired the habit of referring to her from the pulpit under the name of Jezebel. The abyss was already beginning to open between Mary Stuart and her people; the crimes of both were about to render the evil irreparable.
Queen Elizabeth had opened negotiations for persuading her good sister of Scotland to publicly renounce all claim to the crown of England, but Mary demanded to be recognized as the second person of the kingdom, heiress to the throne in case of the death of Elizabeth without issue. The queen would not admit this claim; she experienced an inexpressible repugnance towards settling the succession after her decease. Mary Stuart was not destined to be the only sufferer from this mean jealousy. Elizabeth was at times more than a man, as her minister, Robert Cecil, son of the great Burleigh, said subsequently, but she also became sometimes less than a woman. She had conceived suspicions concerning Lady Catharine Grey, sister of Lady Jane, and heiress to her rights, such as they were. It was discovered that Lady Catharine had secretly married Lord Hertford, son of the Duke of Somerset, formerly Protector. She was imprisoned in the Tower, as though she had conspired against the life and power of the queen. Her husband was travelling in France; he was peremptorily recalled and thrown into prison in his turn. The marriage was declared null, and the child that had recently been born to this pair was stamped as illegitimate. Without any other pretext than state reasons the husband and wife were detained in the Tower, where Lady Catharine Grey died in 1569. The same cause had already cost the lives of two daughters of the Duchess of Suffolk; the third was shortly afterwards to pay, like them, for the royal blood which ran in her veins.
Arthur and Anthony Pole, nephews of the Cardinal, had made a vain attempt in favour of Queen Mary, whom there was a project it is said, for marrying to one of the two brothers, when they should have placed her upon the throne of England; but the queen felt no uneasiness from this source, and she pardoned all the accused persons. She could not, however, conceal from herself that the Catholic princes in general looked upon her with distrust, and would willingly seek a pretext in the illegitimacy of her birth to conspire against her in favour of the Queen of Scotland. This secret motive, far more than her religious convictions, lead her to maintain abroad the cause of the oppressed Protestants, who turned their eyes towards the Queen of England. In France, the Reformers, under the orders of the Prince of Condé and the Admiral de Coligny, had risen at the beginning of 1562, upon the violation by the Duke of Guise of the recent treaties and the massacre of the Protestants at Vassy. They immediately claimed the assistance of Queen Elizabeth. Philip II., who had sent six thousand men to support the Duke of Guise, advised him to keep out of the quarrel and to remain neutral; but Elizabeth had adopted the theory, that she was seconding the wishes of the King of France, by fighting against the Guises, who endeavoured to tyrannize over him. Under this pretext, she sent three thousand men to France, with instructions to take possession of Havre, as a pledge for the good intentions of the Huguenots towards her. At the same time she furnished money to the prince of Condé. An English detachment sent to the assistance of the besieged people in Rouen, was cut to pieces, after the capture of the town. But the garrison of Havre had been reinforced; the Earl of Warwick, brother of Lord Robert Dudley, was in command of the town; he remained firm for nine months both against treachery and the armies of the French. He only yielded to the plague, when infection had thinned his forces. Wounded and ill himself, he was concerned only for the fate of the soldiers whom he brought back when he returned to England in the month of July, 1563, bringing with him the pestilence which had triumphed over all his efforts. Thousands of victims succumbed to the plague which ravaged London during the months of September and October. Elizabeth was negotiating with Queen Catharine of Medicis. The Protestants had been vanquished, but the Duke of Guise was dead, assassinated by Poltrot. Peace was signed on the 11th of April, 1564, at Troves, and the last hope of regaining Calais vanished with the departure of the hostages whom France had given shortly before; Elizabeth received in exchange the sum of a hundred and twenty thousand crowns, a sum very useful to her treasury, which was then empty.
The Parliament of England had, nevertheless, voted considerable subsidies in the preceding year, not without repeating its constant request in favour of the marriage of the queen. The Commons had added on this occasion another petition, which sounded ill in the royal ears. In the event of her Grace having decided for ever against marriage, she was implored to permit Parliament to designate and recognize her legitimate successor. Once more Elizabeth led her people to hope that she was thinking of marriage. She was then engaged in the Scottish intrigues respecting the marriage of Mary Stuart, more probable, although as much debated as her own. Religious and political parties continued to rend Scotland asunder. The Catholics, under the order of the Earl of Huntly, had been defeated at Corrichie by the Earl of Murray, formerly Lord James Stuart, at the head of the Protestants. It was constantly repeated that such or such a one of the great opposing noblemen aspired to the hand of Queen Mary, and they were not the only aspirants. Her beauty, her charms, and the prospect of the crown of England added to the crown of Scotland, drew upon her the eyes and the ambitious hopes of a crowd of princes. The King of Spain proposed his son and heir Don Carlos, and the treaty had been sufficiently advanced by the care of the skilful ambassador of Philip in London, the Bishop of Quadra. When that prelate died, the negotiations relaxed [and] the Guises spoke of the Duke of Anjou, subsequently Henry III., of the Duke of Ferrara, and of several others; but all these claimants were Catholics, the Scottish nation was hostile to them, and Queen Elizabeth did not conceal the fact that any union with a foreign prince, opening up to her enemies the road to her dominions, would bring about war. A personal interview had been projected between the two queens. Mary was, it was said, desirous of consulting her good sister and of proceeding according to her advice, but Elizabeth, vain as she may have been and whatever care she may have taken to cause her beauty to be exalted by her courtiers, at the expense of the charms of her rival, had no wish to face the comparison; the two princesses never saw each other. The Queen of England, meanwhile, proposed for the husband of Mary Stuart, the man whom she herself loved, Lord Robert Dudley, whom she soon raised to the rank of Earl of Leicester. Did she act sincerely? Did she seriously wish to make the fortune of Leicester through the hands of Mary, when politics and her personal scruples did not allow her to raise him to her own level? None will ever know this; but the negotiations were renewed several times, Elizabeth continuing to insist upon marrying the Queen of Scotland to a great English nobleman, and refusing to hear of any but Leicester. People spoke of Lord Darnley, the eldest son of the Earl of Lennox, and grandson, by his mother, of Lady Margaret Douglas, of the Earl of Angus and of Margaret Tudor, Queen of Scotland, and aunt of Elizabeth. He was, therefore, cousin-german to Mary Stuart, and his father, for a long while exiled from Scotland, whither he had recently returned, had immediately undertaken to bring about his marriage with the queen. His birthplace was in England, and he was an English subject, but Elizabeth did not favour his pretensions. Resting her hand upon the shoulder of Leicester, she said to Melville, the skilful and faithful envoy of Mary Stuart, "What do you think of this man? Is he not a good servant? And, nevertheless, you prefer that stripling to him?" referring to Darnley who bore the sword of justice before her. Notwithstanding these objections, Darnley arrived in Scotland at the beginning of the year 1565. and was received kindly by Queen Mary. He was handsome and of good figure; his mother was skilful and intriguing. The confidants of Mary were all gained over; the queen was not opposed to this union. Lord Murray, who counted upon retaining power, counselled the marriage; Parliament did likewise. Queen Elizabeth was informed of what was happening and her anger was violent. Cecil still hoped that Mary Stuart would marry Leicester and so ward off from the head of his mistress the danger of a union which constantly occupied his thoughts. The grave objections of her "good sister" were made known to the Queen of Scotland. Elizabeth went further; the property which the Lennoxes possessed in England was confiscated, and the Countess of Lennox and her second son were sent to the Tower. Sir Nicholas Throgmorton, in whom Elizabeth had confidence was despatched to Scotland, to intrigue with the Lords of the Congregation; they were by slow degrees separating themselves from Mary, and Murray was the first to blame what he had himself advised a short time before. The preachers thundered against the possibility of a union with a Roman Catholic king. Mary was solemnly invited by the assembly of the Church to conform herself to the Protestant faith, by abolishing everywhere in her dominions the Catholic worship. Plot succeeded plot, but Mary was, she said, too much involved to draw back, and on the 12th of July, Darnley, whom the queen had recently raised to the rank of Earl of Ross and Duke of Rothsay, married Mary Stuart in Holyrood Chapel. He was proclaimed king at the Cross in the market-place of Edinburgh. The Earl of Murray and the greater part of the Lords of the Congregation immediately rose in insurrection; but before they were able to assemble their forces, the queen marched upon them at the head of the royal army, and with pistols at her saddle-bow. The lords turned their horses' heads and retired without fighting. Lord Murray and the Duke of Chatellerault only stopped in their flight when they had crossed the frontier. They were ill-received by Elizabeth, though she had encouraged them in their revolt, for she liked neither the insurgents nor those who were vanquished, and she did not intervene in their favour with Mary, who had caused a bill of attainder to be declared by her Parliament against the chiefs of the insurrection. At the same time, Mary committed the error to which she had for a long time been solicited by her uncles of Guise. She united herself to the great Catholic alliance formed several years before between France and Spain, and renewed, it was said, at Bayonne, in 1564. The continual difficulties caused by the rebellions of the great nobles, and by the intrigues of England, naturally tended to throw Mary into the arms of the Catholic sovereigns; it was a fatal blunder on the part of the Queen of Scotland, but her guilt was of another kind.
