“Your Majesty’s most humble and
loving mother and aunt,
“Margaret Lennox.”
The “little daughter” is surely the young Elizabeth Lennox (née Cavendish), who adds this postscript to the letter:—
“I most humbly thank your Majesty that it pleased you to remember me, your poor servant, both with a token and in my La. Gr.’s letter,[[34]] which is not little to my comfort. I can but wish and pray God for your Majesty’s long and happy estate.... I may do your Majesty better service, which I think long to do, and shall always be as ready thereto as any servant your Majesty hath, according as by duty I am bound. I beseech your highness to pardon these rude lines, and accept the good heart of the writer, who loves and honours your Majesty unfeignedly.
“Your Majesty’s most humble and lowly servant through life,
“E. Lennox.”
Now the above convincing and pathetic letter of the dowager Lady Lennox, it seems, never reached Mary; but fortunately for Mary’s reputation and as proof of the accord between her and her mother-in-law with regard to the marriage and other matters, has been preserved.
Two years later, 1577, Queen and mother-in-law were toiling to get the Scottish prince away from the “wicked governor,” and Mary says of Lady Lennox, “I praise God that she becomes daily more sensible of the faithlessness and evil intentions of those whom she previously assisted with her name against me.”