[300] Hatfield Papers; in extenso in Haynes.
[301] Denied afterwards by Norfolk, but confirmed by Melvil. (See State Trials, and Melvil’s Memoirs).
[302] The Bishop of Ross deposed afterwards that Norfolk was so much exasperated at Murray’s having finally brought forward the whole of the evidence to convict Mary of murder, that he formed a plot for his assassination. Melvil says, however, that before Murray returned to Scotland, Throgmorton had fully gained his acquiescence in the projected marriage, and had reconciled the Regent and the Duke.
[303] Alba was very angry with De Spes for the way in which he was compromising Spain. He wrote again to him in July, saying that he “was informed from France that the Queen of Scotland was being utterly ruined by the plotting of her servants with you, as they never enter your house without being watched. This might cost the Queen her life, and I am not sure that yours would be safe.” The evidence given afterwards at the Duke of Norfolk’s trial, and the examinations of Bailly and the Bishop of Ross, proved that Cecil had information of everything that occurred.
[304] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth. Alba, writing to Philip soon afterwards (8th August), says, “I have written several times to Don Gerau, telling him to suspend negotiations, as I plainly see they are tricking him, so as to get all they can from him, and then say they have negotiated without authority. He is zealous … but he is inexperienced; he allows himself to be led away, and is ruining the negotiation.” It will be seen that it was comparatively easy for Cecil to outwit such an instrument as this.
[305] Mary consented to the condition; and the whole arrangement was, according to Norfolk and the Bishop of Ross, acquiesced in by Leicester and the majority of the Council. How far sincere Mary was in accepting the condition, may be seen by her message to De Spes. “She says if she were at liberty, or could get such help as would enable her to bring her country to submission, she would deliver herself and her son entirely into your Majesty’s hands, but now she will be obliged to sail with the wind” (De Spes to Philip, 27th August). This, no doubt, referred to her having consented to the marriage with Norfolk, and to the proposals submitted by the English Government to Murray and the Parliament of Perth for Mary’s return to Scotland. Murray was opposed to his sister’s return in any form, and neither of the Queen’s propositions, nor Mary’s petition for a divorce from Bothwell, was granted. That Cecil was at this time (the spring and summer of 1569) desirous of getting rid of Mary from England, without allowing her to go to France, where the Catholics had just beaten the Huguenots, is certain, and also that he did not wish her to be ill used in Scotland. See his minute sent to Murray by Henry Carey, demanding to know what hostages would be given for her safety if she was returned. (Hatfield Papers, Haynes; also Strype’s Annals, and Rapin.)
[306] Harl. MSS., 6353.
[307] Scrinia Ceciliana, 3rd October.
[308] In a postscript to a letter from the Earl of Huntingdon to Cecil from Coventry, where he was in joint charge of Mary Stuart, 9th December 1569, he mentions “the speech that passeth amongst many, how earnest a dealer you were for this marriage for which the Duke and others do suffer her Majesty’s displeasure: yea, it is reported from the mouth of some of the sufferers that, in persuasion, you (Cecil) yielded such reasons for it as he (the Duke), by them, was most moved to consent.” Cecil can hardly have been so forward in the matter as is here suggested, or it surely would have been mentioned in the rigorous examinations of those implicated. (Hatfield Papers, part i.)
[309] De Spes went so far as to say that it was Cecil who was urging that Norfolk should be sent to the Tower—the very reverse, as we now know, being the case. Cecil afterwards thought it worth while to defend himself against this charge in a note of his still existing in the Cotton MSS. It runs: “Whoso sayeth that I have in any wise directly or indirectly hindered or altered her Majesty’s disposition in the delivery of the Duke of Norfolk out of the Tower, I do affirm the same is untrue, and he that sayeth so doth speak an untruth. If any man will affirm the same to be true against this, my assertion, the same doth therein maintain an untruth and a lye. W. Cecil, xii. Julii, 1570.”