"I have stayed your son from going hence now these two days, upon the queen's commandment, for that she would have him to have as much of the truth of the circumstances of the murder of the king of Scots as might be; and hitherto the same is hard to come by, other than in a generality.... The queen's majesty sent yesterday my lady Howard and my wife to the lady Lenox to the Tower, to open this matter unto her, who could not by any means be kept from such passions of mind as the horribleness of the fact did require. And this last night were with her the said lady, the dean of Westminster, and Dr. Huick, and I hope her majesty will show some favorable compassion of the said lady, whom any humane nature must needs pity[64]."
The liberation of the countess followed; and the earl her husband soon after gratified Elizabeth's desire to interfere, by invoking her assistance to procure, by representations to Mary, some extension of the unusually short time within which he was required to bring forward his proofs against Bothwell, whom he had accused of the assassination of his son.
This petition produced a very earnest letter from one queen to the other; in which Elizabeth plainly represented to her royal sister, that the refusal of such a request to the father of her husband would bring her into greater suspicion than, as she hoped, she was aware, or would be willing to hear; adding, "For the love of God, madam, use such sincerity and prudence in this case, which touches you so nearly, that all the world may have reason to judge you innocent of so enormous a crime; a thing which unless you do, you will be worthily blotted out from the rank of princesses, and rendered, not undeservedly, the opprobrium of the vulgar; rather than which fate should befal you, I should wish you an honorable sepulture instead of a stained life[65]."
But to these and all other representations which could be made to her, this criminal and infatuated woman replied by marrying Bothwell three months after the death of her husband. She now attempted by the most artful sophistries to justify her conduct to the courts of France and England: but vain was the endeavour to excuse or explain away facts which the common sense and common feelings of mankind told them could admit of neither explanation nor apology. The nobles conspired, the people rose in arms against her; and within a single month after her ill-omened nuptials, she saw her guilty partner compelled to tear himself from her arms and seek his safety in flight, and herself reduced to surrender her person into the power of her rebellious subjects.
The battle of Langside put all the power of the country into the hands of the insurgent nobles; but they were much divided in opinion as to the use to be made of their victory. Some wished to restore Mary to regal authority under certain limitations;—others wanted to depose her and proclaim her infant son in her place;—some proposed to detain her in perpetual imprisonment;—others threatened to bring her to trial and capital punishment as an accessary to the death of the king. Meantime she was detained a prisoner in Loch Leven castle, subjected to various indignities, and a prey to the most frightful apprehensions. But there was an eye which watched over her for her safety; and it was that of Elizabeth.
Fears and rivalries, ancient offences and recent provocations,—all the imprudence which she had censured, and all the guilt which she had imputed, vanished from the thought of this princess the moment that she beheld a woman, a kinswoman, and, what was much more, a sister-queen, reduced to this extremity of distress, and exposed to the menaces and insults of her own subjects. For a short time the cause of Mary seemed to her as her own; she interposed in her behalf in a tone of such imperative earnestness, that the Scotch nobles, who feared her power and sought her friendship, did not dare to withstand her; and in all probability Mary at this juncture owed no less than her life to the good offices of her who was destined finally to bring her, with more injustice and after many years of sorrow, to an ignominious death.
It was not however within the power, if indeed it were the wish, of Elizabeth to restore the queen of Scots to the enjoyment either of authority or of freedom. All Scotland seemed at this period united against her; she was compelled to sign a deed of abdication in favor of her son, who was crowned king in July 1567. The earl of Murray was declared regent: and a parliament assembled about the close of the year confirmed all these acts of the confederate lords, and sanctioned the detention of the deposed queen in a captivity of which none could then foresee the termination. Elizabeth ordered her ambassador to abstain from countenancing by his presence the coronation of the king of Scots, and she continued to negotiate for the restoration of Mary: but her ministers strongly represented to her the danger of driving the lords, by a further display of her indignation at their proceedings, into a confederacy with France; and Throgmorton, her ambassador in Scotland, urged her to treat with them to deliver their young king into her hands, in order to his being educated in England.
Some proposal of this nature she accordingly made: but the lords, whom former experience had rendered suspicious of her dealings, absolutely refused to give up their prince without the pledge of a recognition of his right of succession to the English throne; and Elizabeth, reluctant as ever to come to a declaration on this point, reluctant also to desert entirely the interests of Mary, with whose remaining adherents she still maintained a secret intercourse, seems to have abstained for some time from any very active interference in the perplexed affairs of the neighbour kingdom.
The recent occurrences in Scotland had procured Elizabeth some respite from the importunities of her subjects relative to the succession; but it was not the less necessary for her to take some steps in discharge of her promise respecting marriage. Accordingly the earl of Sussex, in this cause a negotiator no less zealous than able, was dispatched in solemn embassy to Vienna, to congratulate the emperor Maximilian on his coronation, and at the same time to treat with his brother the archduke Charles respecting his long agitated marriage with the queen. Two obstacles were to be surmounted,—the attachment of the archduke to the catholic faith, and the repugnance of Elizabeth to enter into engagements with a prince whose person was unknown to her. Both are attempted to be obviated in two extant letters from the ambassador to the queen, which at the same time so well display the manly spirit of the writer, and present details so interesting, that it would be an injury to give their more important passages in other language than his own.
In the first (dated Vienna, October 1567,) the earl of Sussex acquaints her majesty with the arrival of the archduke in that city, and his admission to a first audience, which was one of ceremony only; after which he thus proceeds:—