Randolph to Cecil from Edinburgh, July 4. Ibid. vol. ii. p. 309.
Upon Saturday her Grace came ... to St. Johnston, where word was brought her that the Earl of Argyll and Earl of Murray had assembled many of their friends and servants, and intended to take her and the Lord Darnley riding between that town and the Lord of Livingstone's house, and to have carried the Queen's Grace to St. Andrews, and the Lord Darnley to Castle Campbell, a house of the Earl of Argyll.... She took her horse by five of the clock in the morning, and rode with great speed, having only three women in her train, until she came to the Queen's Ferry, passing through a little town called Kinross, hard by Lochleven, where my Lord of Murray was in a house in the loch with his mother and the Laird of Lochleven, his brother, with a small number of his servants, having been sick of a flux not four days before, intending for all that to have met the Queen, and to have convoyed her as far as her Grace would give him leave; but hearing that her Grace was past that town three or four hours before that he looked for her, he remained still and went not forth....
A REQUEST FOR MONEY
They {the two Earls} think it time to put to that remedy they can; they depend greatly upon the comfort received from the Queen's majesty our sovereign; they know that it as well tendeth to her Majesty's surety for that which may ensure as the present hurt and danger to themselves. Wherefore, having considered her Majesty's friendly and godly offer to concur with them, and to assist them, ... as from subjects that see how far the Sovereign is led by unadvised persons, from her duty to God, and care that she ought to have of the weal of her country, they most humbly desire the performance of her Majesty's promise.... They are loth so far to charge her Majesty as to desire any number of men to take their part, but that it will only please her Majesty to help them with such sums of money as for a time may be able to keep themselves together, be it that they determine to be wheresoever the Queen's self is, or to remain in Edinburgh, where they may best put order unto all those grievous enormities.... They think that if her Majesty would bestow only three thousand pounds sterling for this year, except some foreign force shall be brought in against them.
Acts of the Privy Council of Scotland, July 12, 1565.
For as much as divers evil disposed persons ... wickedly and ungodly have pretended by untrue reports ... that her Majesty had begun or intended to impede, stay, or molest any of them in using of their religion and conscience freely ... ordains letters to be direct to officers of the Queen's Sheriff in that part {respect}, charging them to pass to the market crosses of all burghs of this realm, and other places needful, and there, by open proclamation, make publication of this her Majesty's mind and meaning; certifying and assuring all her good subjects, that as they, nor none of them, have hitherto been molested in the quiet using of their religion and conscience, so shall they not be unquieted in that behalf in any time to come; but behaving themselves honestly as good subjects shall find her Majesty their good princess, willing to do them justice, and to show them favour and clemency, but {without} innovation or alteration in any sort.
A ROYAL MARRIAGE
Randolph to Leicester, from Edinburgh, July 31, 1565. Wright's Elizabeth, vol. i. p. 199.
I doubt not but your Lordship hath heard by such information as I have given from hence, what the present state of this country is, how this Queen is now become a married wife, and her husband, the self same day of his marriage, made a king.... So many discontented minds, so much misliking of the subjects to have these matters, ordered in this sort, to be brought to pass, I never heard of any marriage.... Thus they fear the overthrow of religion, the breach of amity with the Queen's Majesty {Elizabeth}, destruction of as many of the nobility as she hath misliking of, or that he to pick a quarrel unto.... He {Darnley} would now seem to be indifferent to both the religions, she to use her mass, and he to come sometimes to the preaching.
They were married with all the solemnities of the popish time, saving that he heard not the mass; his speech and talk argueth his mind, and yet would he fain seem to the world that he were of some religion. His words to all men against whom he conceiveth any displeasure, how unjust soever it be, so proud and spiteful, that rather he seemeth a monarch of the world than he that not long since we have seen and known the Lord Darnley....