Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 2.djvu/440

426 sixteen, and Elizabeth replied that "her good brother was too great and too small; too great as a king, and too small, being but young, and she already thirty." Catherine, however, again pressed it, by De Foix, the ambassador; but Elizabeth, laughing, said, she thought her neighbour, Mary Stuart, would suit him better; this, however, was only thrown out because Elizabeth had heard of some such project, which, if real, she would oppose resolutely.

The Earl of Murray. From an original Portrait.

But a circumstance now took place which it seems difficult to account for. Having refused to permit Lord Darnley to go to Scotland, lest he should marry the Queen of Scots, and add to her claims on the English throne, all at once her objection seemed to vanish, and in February, 1565, she permitted him to travel to Edinburgh. Darnley was at this time in his twentieth year, very tall and handsome, possessing the courtly accomplishments of the age, and free in the distribution of his money. He waited on the young queen at Wemyss Castle, in Fife, and was well received by Mary, who was now about four-and-twenty. There appears no doubt but that the marriage had been planned and promoted by the Lennox party, and it is said that Murray encouraged it, thinking that with a young man of Darnley's weak and pleasure-loving character, he could easily retain the power of the State in his hands. Be that as it may, Darnley soon proposed, and was rejected; but Elizabeth, contrary to her own intentions, contributed to alter Mary's resolution. Elizabeth, probably apprehensive that Darnley being present might obtain the queen's goodwill, again sent Randolph to press the marriage with Leicester; on which Mary, bursting into tears, declared that the Queen of England treated her as a child, and immediately favoured the pretensions of Darnley.

The rumour of the queen's intention to marry Darnley soon reached the English Court. De Foix hastened to consult Elizabeth upon it, and found her playing at chess, and, whispering the news, added, as he surveyed