In addition Mary wrote at this time to “Monsieur de Glasgo” one of her Archbishops, in such a manner as shows her sincere attitude towards the Lennox succession. This letter embodies the important fact of the interposition of Queen Elizabeth, while the warrant just quoted awards the care of the jewels not to the mother but the maternal grandmother of the Stuart heiress.
“The Countess of Lennox, my mother-in-law died about a month ago, and the Q. of Ed. has taken into her care her ladyship’s grand daughter (Arabella S.). I desire those who are about my son to make instances in his name for this succession, not for any desire I have that he should actually succeed to it, but rather to testify that neither he nor I ought to be reputed or treated as foreigners in England who are both born within the same isle.
“This good lady was, thank God, in very good correspondence with me these 5 or 6 years bygone, and has confessed to me by sundry letters under her hand, which I carefully preserve, the injury she did me by the unjust pursuits wh. she allowed to go against me in her name, thro’ bad information, but principally, she said thro’ the express orders of the Q. of Ed. and the persuasions of her council, who took much solicitude that we might never come to good understanding together. But as soon as she came to know of my innocence, she desisted from any further suit against me.”[[64]]
Lady Shrewsbury may or may not have felt the support of Mary ineffectual, but she must have hoped everything from Elizabeth, and to Lord Burghley’s condolences wrote thus:—
“My honourable good Lord, your Lordship hath heard by my Lo. how it hath pleased God to visit me; but in what sort soever his pleasure is to lay his heavy hand on us we must take it thankfully. It is good reason his holy will should be obeyed. My honourable good Lord I shall not need here to make long recital to your Lo. how that in all my greatest matters I have been singularly bound to your Lo. for your Lo. good and especial favour to me, and how much your Lo. did bind me, the poor woman that is gone, and my Arbella, at our last meeting at Court, neither the mother during her life, nor can I ever forget, but most thankfully acknowledge it; and so I am well assured will the young babe when her riper years will suffer her to know her best friends. And now my good Lo. I hope her Majesty upon my most humble suit will let that portion which her Majesty bestowed on my daughter and jewel Arbella, remain wholly to the child for her better education. Her servants that are to look to her, her masters that are to train her up in all good learning and virtue, will require no small charges; wherefore my earnest request to your Lo. is so to recommend this my humble suit to her Majesty as it may soonest and easiest take effect; and I beseech your Lo. to give my son William Cavendish leave to attend on your Lo. about this matter. And so referring myself, my sweet jewel Arbella, and the whole matter to your honourable and friendly consideration, I take my leave of your Lo. to pardon me for that I am not able to write to your Lo. with my own hand. Sheffield this 28th January.
“Your L. most assured
loving friend
“E. Shrewsbury.”[[65]]
Meanwhile the young King of Scotland took his own way, and Esmé Stuart stepped eventually into the shoes of the newly appointed Lord Lennox—the old Bishop of Caithness aforesaid—as intended by the nobles who surrounded the Scottish throne.
There was from the standpoint of King James sufficient excuse for this device. Esmé was the nephew of the late Lord Lennox, Arabella’s grandfather, and a close kinsman of the young King. He had courtly training, culture, and diplomacy in his favour. He was nine years older than the little sovereign, and he came to Scotland from France as the accredited though secret representative of Rome and the Guises, to win Scotland at one stroke back to its alliance with France and its obedience to the Pope. He made his presence felt quickly enough and the first-fruits of his coming was the seizure and execution of Lord Morton—erstwhile Regent, and creature of Elizabeth—as a prominent agent in the murder of Lord Darnley. Here for the moment we leave Esmé Stuart, in Creighton’s concentrated phrase, as “master of Scotland ... the English party practically destroyed.”