"Harry,
"If our partial slender managing of the contentious quarrel between the two Irish earls did not make the way to cause these lines to pass my hand, this gibberish should hardly have cumbered your eyes; but warned by my former fault, and dreading worser hap to come, I rede you take good heed that the good subjects lost state be so revenged that I hear not the rest be won to a right bye way to breed more traitor's stocks, and so the goal is gone. Make some difference between tried, just, and false friend. Let the good service of well-deservers be never rewarded with loss. Let their thank be such as may encourage no strivers for the like. Suffer not that Desmond's denying deeds, far wide from promised works, make you to trust to other pledge than either himself or John for gage: he hath so well performed his English vows, that I warn you trust him no longer than you see one of them. Prometheus let me be, Epimetheus[59] hath been mine too long. I pray God your old strange sheep late (as you say) returned into the fold, wore not her wooly garment upon her wolvy back. You know a kingdom knows no kindred, si violandum jus regnandi causa. A strength to harm is perilous in the hand of an ambitious head. Where might is mixed with wit, there is too good an accord in a government. Essays be oft dangerous, specially when the cup-bearer hath received such a preservative as, what might so ever betide the drinker's draught, the carrier takes no bane thereby.
"Believe not, though they swear, that they can be full sound, whose parents sought the rule that they full fain would have. I warrant you they will never be accused of bastardy; you were to blame to lay it to their charge, they will trace the steps that others have passed before. If I had not espied, though very late, legerdemain, used in these cases, I had never played my part. No, if I did not see the balances held awry, I had never myself come into the weigh house. I hope I shall have so good a customer of you, that all other officers shall do their duty among you. If aught have been amiss at home, I will patch though I cannot whole it. Let us not, nor no more do you, consult so long as till advice come too late to the givers: where then shall we wish the deeds while all was spent in words; a fool too late bewares when all the peril is past. If we still advise, we shall never do, thus are we still knitting a knot never tied; yea, and if our web[60] be framed with rotten hurdles, when our loom is welny done, our work is new to begin. God send the weaver true prentices again, and let them be denizens I pray you if they be not citizens; and such too as your ancientest aldermen, that have or now dwell in your official place, have had best cause to commend their good behaviour.
"Let this memorial be only committed to Vulcan's base keeping, without any longer abode than the reading thereof, yea, and with no mention made thereof to any other wight. I charge you as I may command you. Seem not to have had but secretary's letter from me.
"Your loving mistress
"Elizabeth R."
In the month of June 1566, the queen of Scots was delivered of a son. James Melvil was immediately dispatched with the happy intelligence to her good sister of England: and he has fortunately left us a narrative of this mission, which equals in vivacity the relation of his former visit. "By twelve of the clock I took horse, and was that night at Berwick. The fourth day after, I was at London, and did first meet with my brother sir Robert (then ambassador to England), who that same night sent and advertised secretary Cecil of my arrival, and of the birth of the prince, desiring him to keep it quiet till my coming to court to show it myself unto her majesty, who was for the time at Greenwich, where her majesty was in great mirth, dancing after supper. But so soon as the secretary Cecil whispered in her ear the news of the prince's birth, all her mirth was laid aside for that night. All present marvelling whence proceeded such a change; for the queen did sit down, putting her hand under her cheek, bursting out to some of her ladies, that the queen of Scots was mother of a fair son, while she was but a barren stock.
"The next morning was appointed for me to get audience, at what time my brother and I went by water to Greenwich, and were met by some friends who told us how sorrowful her majesty was at my news, but that she had been advised to show a glad and cheerful countenance; which she did in her best apparel, saying, that the joyful news of the queen her sister's delivery of a fair son, which I had sent her by secretary Cecil, had recovered her out of a heavy sickness which she had lain under for fifteen days. Therefore she welcomed me with a merry volt, and thanked me for the diligence I had used in hasting to give her that welcome intelligence." &c. "The next day her majesty sent unto me her letter, with the present of a fair chain."
Resolved to perform with a good grace the part which she had assumed, Elizabeth accepted with alacrity the office of sponsor to the prince of Scotland, sending thither as her proxies the earl of Bedford, Mr. Carey son of lord Hunsdon, and other knights and gentlemen; who met with so cordial a reception from Mary,—now at open variance with her husband, and therefore desirous of support from England,—as to provoke the jealousy of the French ambassadors. The present of the royal godmother was a font of pure gold worth above one thousand pounds; in return for which, rings, rich chains of diamond and pearl, and other jewels were liberally bestowed upon her substitutes.
The birth of her son lent a vast accession of strength to the party of the queen of Scots in England; and Melvil was commissioned to convey back to her from several of the principal personages of the court, warm professions of an attachment to her person and interests, which the jealousy of their mistress compelled them to dissemble. Elizabeth, on her part, was more than ever disturbed by suspicions on this head, which were kept in constant activity by the secret informations of the armies of spies whom it was her self-tormenting policy to set over the words and actions of the Scottish queen and her English partisans. The more she learned of the influence privately acquired by Mary amongst her subjects, the more, of course, she feared and hated her, and the stronger became her determination never to give her additional consequence by an open recognition of her right of succession. At the same time she was fully sensible that no other person could be thought of as the inheritrix of her crown; and she resolved, perhaps wisely, to maintain on this subject an inflexible silence: this policy, however, connected with her perseverance in a state of celibacy, began to awaken in her people an anxiety respecting their future destinies, which, being artfully fomented by Scottish emissaries, produced, in 1566, the first symptoms of discord between the queen and her faithful commons.