As soon as the Queen was made aware that she had missed her enemies, she marched back in pursuit of them, at the head of 5000 men, as far as Callender. Murray could only fly from a power which he knew he was not able to withstand. Alarmed by Mary’s speedy return, he left Edinburgh, and again passing her on the road, led his followers to Lanark, and from thence to Hamilton. With indomitable perseverance, the Queen retraced her steps to Glasgow, expecting Murray would make an attempt upon that city. But finding there was no safety for him in this part of Scotland, he suddenly turned off towards the south, and with as little delay as possible, retired into Dumfries-shire. Here, being near the Borders, he expected that Elizabeth would send him succour from England, and at all events, he could at any time make good his retreat into that country. The principal noblemen with him were the Duke of Chatelherault, the Earls of Argyle, Glencairn, and Rothes, and the Lords Boyd and Ochiltree. Morton and Maitland remained with the Queen; but the fidelity of both is much to be suspected, though the command of the main body of the Royal army was intrusted to the former. The Earl of Lennox led the van, and the Queen herself rode with her officers in a suit of light armour, carrying pistols at her saddle-bow; “her courage,” says Knox, “manlike, and always increasing.” She did not think it worth while to follow Murray into Dumfries-shire, but preferred leading her army through Fife, to St Andrews, taking possession, on the way, of Castle Campbell, the seat of the rebel Lord, Argyle.
Elizabeth in the mean time was far from being inattentive to the interests of her servants in Scotland. Randolph wrote to Cecil, that if she would assist them with men and more money, he doubted not but one country would receive both the Queens; by which he meant, that the rebels would thus be able to fulfil their design, of sending Mary prisoner into England.[104] The Earl of Bedford informed his mistress of the arrival of her friends on the Borders, and hinted to her that their cause was evidently not very popular in Scotland, and that their force was much inferior to that of Mary. Elizabeth’s letter, in answer, is as artful a piece of writing as has ever proceeded even from a female pen. Afraid that she might go too far in assisting the losing party, she resolved to make it be believed that she acted against them, whilst in truth she secretly encouraged and supported them. With this view, she wrote to Bedford, that in consequence of his representations, as well as those of Randolph and others, she sent him three thousand pounds; one thousand of which was to be paid immediately to Murray, in the most private way possible, and as if it came from Bedford himself. The remainder was to be kept till occasion required its expenditure. “And where, we perceive,” she continued, “by your sundry letters, the earnest request of the said Earl of Murray and his associates, that they might have at least 300 of our soldiers to aid them, and that you also write, that though we would not command you to give them aid, yet if we would but wink at your doing herein, and seem to blame you for attempting such things, as you, with the help of others, should bring about, you doubt not but things would do well,—we are content, and do authorize you, if you shall see it necessary for their defence, to let them (as of your own adventure, and without notification that you have any direction therein from us), to have the number of 300 soldiers, wherein you shall so precisely deal with them, that they may perceive your care to be such as, if it should otherwise appear, your danger should be so great, as all the friends you have could not be able to save you towards us. And so we assure you, our conscience moveth us to charge you so to proceed with them; and yet we would not that either of these were known to be our act, but rather to be covered with your own desire and attempt.” Having further mentioned, that she had written lately to Mary, to assure that princess of her esteem and good will, Elizabeth boldly affixed her signature to this memorable record of unblushing duplicity.[105]
But Mary was not to be lulled into dangerous security. All her operations during this campaign were, as Robertson has remarked, “concerted with wisdom, executed with vigour, and attended with success.” At St Andrews, she issued a proclamation, exposing the hollowness of the grounds upon which arms had been taken up against her, and showing that religion was only made a cloak to cover other more ungodly designs. Alluding, in particular, to the Earl of Murray, upon whom she had bestowed so many benefits, this proclamation stated, that his insatiable ambition was not to be satisfied with heaping riches upon riches, and honour upon honour, unless he should also continue to have, as he had too long had, the Queen and the whole realm in his own hands, to be used and governed at his pleasure. “By letters sent from themselves to us,” Mary says, “they make plain profession that the establishment of religion will not content them, but we must per force be governed by such council as it shall please them to appoint unto us.” “The like,” she adds, “was never demanded of any our most noble progenitors heretofore, yea, not even of governors or regents; but the prince, or such as occupied his place, ever chose his council of such as he thought most fit for the purpose. When we ourselves were of less age, and at our first arrival in our realm, we had free choice of our council at our pleasure; and now, when we are at our full majority, shall we be brought back to the state of pupils and minors, or be put under tutelage? So long as some of them bore the whole swing with us themselves, this matter was never called in question; but now, when they cannot be longer permitted to do and undo all things of their appetite, they will put a bridle in our mouths, and give us a council chosen after their phantasy! To speak it in plain language, they would be king themselves; or at the least, leaving to us the bare name and title, take to themselves the whole use and administration of the kingdom.”[106]
After levying a small fine of two hundred marks from the town of Dundee, which had given some countenance to the malcontents, Mary and Darnley returned to Edinburgh. They there received such accounts of the increasing strength of the rebels, as induced them to determine on marching southwards. Biggar was named as the place of rendezvous for the lieges, and they flocked in such crowds to join the standard of their sovereign, that the Queen was enabled to advance towards the Borders at the head of an army of 18,000 men. Before this greatly superior force, Murray and his partisans, including his 300 English soldiers, retired to Carlisle. He was closely followed thither, upon which his troops dispersed, and he himself and his friends sought refuge by flying further into England. Mary, after visiting the castle of Lochmaben, left Bothwell, with some troops, to watch the Borders; and, on the 18th of October, returned to Edinburgh with the rest of her army.[107]
Of the rebellious nobles thus forced into exile, the Duke of Chatelherault alone was able or willing to make his peace immediately. He and his sons were pardoned, on condition of their living abroad—a degree of leniency extended to them by Mary, in opposition to the wishes of the house of Lennox, which was anxious for the entire ruin of the Hamiltons.[108] Murray and the rest, being kindly received by Bedford, fixed their residence at Newcastle, whence the Earl himself, and the Abbot of Kilwinning, were deputed to proceed to the English court, and lay the state of their affairs before Elizabeth, upon whose patronage they conceived they had peculiar claims. It was, however, no part of Elizabeth’s policy to befriend in their adversity those with whom she had associated herself in more prosperous days. As soon as she heard that Murray was on his way to her court, she wrote to stop him, and to inform him that it was not meet for him to have any “open dealing” with her. But at Bedford’s earnest entreaty he was allowed to continue his journey, the object of which, he said, was to make some proposals for the “common cause.”[109] It was nevertheless a long while before he could obtain an audience of the Queen; and when that honour was at length conceded to him, she had the confidence to ask him, with an unruffled countenance, how he, being a rebel to her sister of Scotland, durst have the boldness to come within her realm? Murray, in reply, ventured to speak of the support he had all along received from her; but as this was betraying her policy to her continental neighbours, it exasperated her to such a degree, that she declared he and his friends should never obtain any thing from her but scorn and neglect, unless he made a public recantation of such an assertion. With this demand both the Earl and the Abbot had the meanness to comply; and though Sir Nicolas Throckmorton interfered in their behalf, and openly avowed that he had been sent into Scotland expressly to make offers of assistance to the rebel lords, he could not save them from the degradation which Elizabeth inflicted. They appeared before her when she was surrounded by the French and Spanish ambassadors, and impiously affirmed, upon their knees, that her Majesty had never moved them to any opposition or resistance against their own Queen. As soon as they had uttered this falsehood, Elizabeth said to them,—“Now ye have told the truth; for neither did I, nor any in my name, stir you up against your Queen. Your abominable treason may serve for example to my own subjects to rebel against me. Therefore, get ye out of my presence; ye are but unworthy traitors.”[110]
Sir James Melville, speaking of this affair, says, with his usual quaintness, that “Mary chasit the rebel lords here and there, till at length they were compellit to flee into England for refuge, to her that had promised, by her ambassadors, to wair (expend) her Croun in their defence, in case they were driven to any strait for their opposition to the said marriage.”—“But Elizabeth,” he adds, “handlit the matter sae subtilly, and the other twa sae blaitly, that she triumphed both over them and the ambassadors.” The deputation returned quite chop-fallen, to their friends at Newcastle, where they lived for some time in great poverty, and very wretchedly. Such were the more immediate results of this piece of juggling on the part of Elizabeth, and justly unsuccessful rebellion on that of Murray.
CHAPTER XV.
THE EARL OF MORTON’S PLOT.