Lennox spoke first. ‘Hey, Master Randolph!’—his little naked eyes were like pin-pricks—‘Hey, Master Randolph, I dare not do it. No, no. It’s not in the power of man living to do the like of it.’
Randolph shifted his scrutiny. The Prince was angry, therefore bold; assured, therefore haughty.
‘And I, Randolph,’ he said, ‘tell you fairly that go I will not.’
Randolph became dry. ‘I hope my lord, for a better answer to the Queen your sovereign. Will and Shall are bad travelling companions for a legate. I urge once more your duty upon you.’
‘Duty!’ cried the flushed youth: ‘I own to no duty but Queen Mary’s, and I never will. As to the other Queen, your mistress, who grudges me my fortune, it is no wonder that she needs me. You will understand wherefore in a few days’ time. I do not intend to return: there is your answer. I am very well where I am, and likely to be better yet anon. So I purpose to remain. There is your answer, which seems to me a good one.’
Randolph turned his back and left them. When he saw the Earl of Moray he said that he had done his best to serve him; and that, although he had no hope of staying the marriage, his lordship might count upon the friendship of England in all enterprises he might think well to engage in ‘for the welfare of both realms.’ This was cold comfort.
Shortly after this disappointment the careworn lord got into a wrangle with the Prince in a public place—not a difficult thing to do. It began with the young man’s loud rebuke of Mr. Knox, who (said he) had called him ‘a covetous clawback,’ and whose ears he threatened to crop with a pair of shears. Beginning in the vestibule of the Council-chamber, it was continued on the open cawsey in everybody’s hearing. There was heat; the younger may have raised his hand against the elder, or he may not. The Earl, at any rate, declared that he went in fear of his life. Then came the hour, most memorable, when he saw the Queen alone.
He was sent for, and he came, as he told her at once, ‘with his life in his hand.’
She asked him who would touch his hand, except to take it and shake it?
‘One, madam,’ he replied darkly, ‘who is too near your Majesty for my honour or——’ and there he stopped.