[221] Randolph to Cecil, 3rd June. Harl. MSS., 4645.
[222] Spanish Calendar, Elizabeth, vol. i.
[223] The action of the French representatives was extremely perplexing. On the one hand, they offered help to Elizabeth against Scotland, and urged Mary to make terms with Murray; whilst on the other, they continued to intercede with Elizabeth for Lady Margaret and Mary, and conveyed the kindest messages to the Queen and Darnley. (See Randolph’s letters.)
[224] Yaxley was sent back from Madrid with glowing promises and encouragement from Philip to Mary and Darnley, and 20,000 crowns in money. The ship, however, in which he sailed from Flanders was wrecked, and Yaxley’s lifeless body was washed up on the coast of Northumberland, with the money and despatches attached to it. The money, of course, never reached Mary, but formed the subject of a long squabble as to the respective claims for it, of the Crown and the Earl of Northumberland. (Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth, vol. i.).
[225] State Papers, Scotland.
[226] Randolph’s letter, 6th February 1566, gives particulars of Mary’s adhesion to the League of Bayonne (Harl. MSS. 4645); but she does not appear actually to have signed the “bond” sent to her, as she was urged to do by the Bishop of Dunblane and other papal emissaries. There is not the slightest doubt, however, that she looked at this time to the Catholic league alone for help in her claims, and had decided to defy England and the Protestant party.
[227] Randolph to Cecil, 1st March; and Randolph and Bedford to Cecil, 6th March (Scottish State Papers).
[228] Randolph wrote to Leicester on the 13th February 1566, telling him of a plot to kill Rizzio, and probably the Queen, in order that Lennox and his son Darnley might seize the crown. He says he thinks it better not to tell Cecil, but to keep the secret between the writer and Leicester. On the 1st March, Randolph sent to Cecil copies of the two “Conventions,” signed by the Earls—namely, that of Darnley, Morton, and Ruthven, to kill Rizzio; and that of Murray, Argyll, Rothes, &c., to uphold Darnley in all his quarrels. Bedford, writing to Cecil on the 6th March, begged him earnestly to keep the whole matter secret, except from Leicester and the Queen. It will thus be seen that, far from being a promoter of the Darnley plot to kill Rizzio, Cecil did not know of it in time to stop its perpetration, if he had been inclined to do so, as the murder was committed on the 9th March. Against this, however, must be placed, for what it is worth, Guzman’s statement that Cecil had told Lady Margaret of Rizzio’s murder as having taken place the day before it really occurred.
[229] From a statement of Guzman (28th January 1566) it would appear that Cecil, probably in union with Murray, had some idea of bringing Darnley round to the English interest. The Queen (Elizabeth), he says, had refused Rambouillet’s suggestion that when he arrived in Scotland he might bring about a reconciliation between the two Queens. “Afterwards, however, Cecil went to his (Rambouillet’s) lodgings, and told him that when the King of Scotland, bearing in mind that he had been an English subject, should write modestly to the Queen, saying that he was sorry for her anger, and greatly wished that it should disappear, he (Cecil) believed that everything would be settled, if at the same time the Queen of Scotland would send an Ambassador hither to treat of Lady Margaret’s affairs” (Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth, vol. i.).
[230] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth, vol. i.