Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 2.djvu/469

] but if the queen should be pressed by necessity to cross the borders, he would meet her and protect her till his mistress's pleasure were known; but such was her terror of falling again into the hands of her cold-blooded brother and the lords, that, without waiting for the answer, she entered a boat, and with her riding-dress soiled with her flight, and without any change of raiment, without a shilling in her pocket, she landed at Workington, in Cumberland. Here she wrote to Elizabeth, expressing her strong confidence that Elizabeth would receive her and protect her against her rebellious subjects. She concluded her letter with these words:—"It is my earnest request that your majesty will send for me as soon as possible, for my condition is pitiable, not to say for a queen, but even for a simple gentlewoman. I have no other dress than that in which I escaped from the field. My first day's ride was sixty miles across the country, and I have not since dared to travel except by night."

Elizabeth, on reading this letter, felt that Mary was now entirely in her power; and all her art was exerted to draw her over into the heart of the kingdom, so that she could neither retreat nor escape to France. She took every measure to avoid alarming her. She dispatched letters to the sheriff of Cumberland, commanding him to treat the Scottish queen with all honour, but to keep the strictest watch over her, and to prevent any possibility of escape. She sent Sir Francis Knollys with letters of condolence, and ordered Lady Scroope to give her her personal attendance. But there wanted that genuine cordial tone in Elizabeth's letters which alone could assure her; and the manner of those placed about her inspired her with misgivings. Doubts seem to have been suffered to escape as to the probability of her reception by the queen, from the suspicions which attached to her of connivance in the plot against her husband. Alarmed by these circumstances, Mary wrote again to Elizabeth, urging her to allow her to come at once to her, and explain and satisfy her of everything. She said she had sent Lord Herries to communicate with her, and Lord Fleming to bear her letters to France; and she desired that, if any one had succeeded in prejudicing the queen against her, she might be allowed to depart the realm as freely as she had come. She had been detained like a prisoner, she said, for fifteen days, and she confessed that it felt to her strange and hard. She accompanied this letter by a ring, to which some particular circumstance attached, and which was probably the gift of Elizabeth. It bore the impression of a heart: and she added, "Remember, I have kept my promise. I have sent you my heart in the ring, and now I have brought to you both heart and body to knit more firmly the tie which binds us together."

But nothing was farther from Elizabeth's intentions than to enter on friendly and amicable terms with the Queen of Scots. She had never forgiven her the offence of insisting on her claims of succession to the crown of England. She had a personal jealousy of the fame of her superior beauty; and, with such a counsellor as Cecil, it was certain that a selfish and suspicious policy would prevail. In those days, honour and high principle were of little account: expediency was the only statesmanship. It was, therefore, easy for Elizabeth and her ministers to plead the accusations against Mary—the imprudence of her conduct, and her still unabated infatuation for the murderer Bothwell. Mary was a firm Papist, Murray was a high professing Protestant, and to favour him and his party was to be the champion of Protestantism. To let Mary escape to France was not to be thought of, for of all things it was essential to keep asunder the union of French and Scottish interests. It was clear, therefore, that Mary must be detained in England, at least for the present; and little, under all circumstances, could be said against it, so that she was detained as became a queen and a relative. But here again the cold, base, and ungenerous policy, which was the natural offspring of Cecil's narrow but clear-sighted mind, unfortunately prevailed. It was urged that it was most dangerous to permit Mary to have, as it were, open access, and to hold open Court, amongst the discontented Papists of England, and that her arrival had made a lively impression on those Catholics of the north, and many indignant words were uttered on the flagrant injustice and discourtesy of keeping her as a prisoner. These had such an effect on Sir Francis Knollys, that he did not hesitate to declare his impatience of being placed in the position of her gaoler.

Knollys had, indeed, very unpleasant duties to perform. The nobility and gentry of the north naturally were anxious to pay their respects to the Scottish queen, and nothing could excite the jealousy of Elizabeth more than this. She kept Mary close prisoner in Carlisle Castle; and when the Earl of Northumberland, attended by Sir Nicholas and Sir William Fairfax, and other gentlemen, came to wait upon her, Lowther, as deputy-warder, refused to admit any one with him except his page, Knollys, on his arrival, replied to the earl's complaint that he understood that he wished to take the Scottish queen out of Lowther's hands, which was unwarranted by any order of her Majesty, and, therefore, Lowther had only done his duty. Northumberland replied that it was true; that he considered Lowther too base a man to have the charge of the Queen of Scotland; and that he had brought warrants from the Council at York empowering him to enter on that duty. But Northumberland and all these gentlemen were Romanists, and therefore the jealousy that arose.

Notwithstanding the ebullitions of public opinion, condemning the conduct of the English Court in treating the Queen of Scots as a prisoner and an enemy, rather than as an independent sovereign in distress, it was resolved to keep Mary a prisoner for life, and to support Murray in his usurped power. This proceeding was so totally at variance with all the past professions of Elizabeth, that it has cost some of our historians much rhetoric to raise a plausible vindication of what is altogether incapable of vindication. On the insurrection of the Scottish lords against Mary, Elizabeth had expressed the most virtuous indignation. She had vowed that she would reinstate her on the throne; she had prohibited Randolph and Throckmorton, her ambassadors, attending the coronation of her son; she had refused to confirm Murray in the title of regent, and had called upon him loudly to return to his duty and liberate his rightful sovereign. She had endeavoured to obtain access to Mary by her ambassadors, and to the last moment had maintained the mask of friendship and the words of