Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 2.djvu/478

464 bearing full details of the propositions laid before the Scottish Parliament, and the consent received from Bothwell in Denmark to the divorce. The marriage with Norfolk, which was the end and object of all these plottings, had never been communicated to Elizabeth; for, though Leicester had promised to impart it to her, he had not ventured to do it. Elizabeth immediately invited Norfolk to dine with her at Farnham, and, on rising from table, reminded him, in a very significant tone, of his speech when charged with such a design some time before, saying, "My lord duke, beware on what pillow you lay your head." Alarmed at this expression, Norfolk urged Leicester to redeem his promise, and speak to the queen on the subject; and this he did, under pretence of being seriously ill, whilst the queen was sitting by his bedside. The rage of Elizabeth was unbounded, but on Leicester expressing the deepest regret for his meddling in the matter, she forgave him, but sent for Norfolk and poured out on him her wrath and scorn. Norfolk expressed himself perfectly indifferent to the alliance, though so strongly recommended by his friends; but his words and manner did not deceive the deep-sighted queen. She continued to regard him with stern looks, and the courtiers immediately avoided him as a dangerous person. Leicester, who had promised him so much, lowered upon him as a public disturber. Norfolk felt it most agreeable to withdraw from Court, and his example was followed by his stanch friends Pembroke and Arundel. From Norfolk he wrote to Elizabeth, excusing his absence, and expressing fears of the acts and slanders of his enemies. Elizabeth immediately commanded him to return to London. Her first information from Murray had been increased by the treachery of that nobleman and of Leicester, who had hastened to reveal to her all the secret correspondence of Norfolk with them. His friends advised him to fly, but he did not venture on this, but wrote to Cecil to intercede with the queen. Cecil assured him there was no danger; the duke, therefore, proceeded to London, and was instantly arrested and committed to the Tower.

At the same time Elizabeth joined the Earl of Huntingdon, an avowed enemy of the Queen of Scots, in commission with her keeper, the Earl of Shrewsbury, and Viscount Hertford, to secure more completely the person of Mary, who was again removed to Tutbury, and to examine her papers for further proofs of the correspondence with Norfolk. Her confidential servants were dismissed; her person was surrounded by an armed force; and her cabinets and apartments were strictly searched for this correspondence, but without effect. It is also asserted that it was determined to put her to death, if, as it was expected, the Duke of Norfolk should attempt her rescue by force. The friends of Mary blamed the duke for not taking arms for her rescue, declaring that a short time would have brought whole hosts to his standard, but Norfolk must have too well known the hopelessness of such an enterprise.

The disclosure of the plot produced consternation and distrust on all sides. Murray, in revealing the correspondence with Norfolk, had not been able to escape suspicion himself. Elizabeth saw enough to believe that he had been an active promoter of the scheme; she saw still clearer that Maitland had been the originator of it; she was, moreover, incensed at the double-faced part which Murray's secretary, Wood, had been playing in the matter in London: and she ordered Lord Hunsdon, and her other agents in the north, to keep a sharp eye on Murray, and the movements of the leading Scots. To propitiate Elizabeth, Murray determined to sacrifice Maitland: he, therefore, lured him from his retreat by some plausible artifice, when, on the demand of Lennox, he was arrested in the council as one of the murderers of his son Darnley. Sir James Balfour, whom Lennox also accused, was seized with his brother George, spite of the pardon which had been granted him on this head. In the midst of Murray's exultation over his success, Kirkaldy of Grange, dreading fresh disclosures, attacked the house where Maitland was kept, and carried him off.

The truth of the assertion that had the Duke of Norfolk risen in arms he would have found extensive support, was now manifested by what took place in the north of England. The fascinations of the Queen of Scots were felt by all who approached her. Her beauty and her wrongs deeply stirred the enthusiasm of the generous, and the attempts to defame her character only resulted in raising her up hosts of friends, who regarded her as a martyr to the cause of her religion. Many were the offers of service, to the utmost extent of life and fortune, which she received from chivalrous gentlemen who beheld with indignation her unworthy treatment, or who doubly sympathised with her through the oppression of the common faith. So long as the Duke of Norfolk was her great champion, she referred all their offers to him; but when he fell, and she found two of her mortal enemies appointed the guardians, or rather keepers, of her person, she entertained the deepest fears for her life, and exerted all her eloquence to rouse her friends for her liberation. She dispatched secret messages—verbal ones they seem to have been, for they never could be traced—to the Earl of Westmoreland, whose wife was the sister of Norfolk, and to the Earl of Northumberland, who had his own causes of complaint against the Council. These were forwarded by them to Egremont Radcliffe, brother of the Earl of Sussex, to Leonard Dacres, the uncle of the late Lord Dacres, to the Nortons, Tempests, Markenfields, and others who had tendered their services. She did not scruple in conversation to assert that Cecil would never rest till he had her made away, and she wrote to demand that the two hostile keepers should be removed, one of whom was not only her own enemy, but had said at table that the Duke of Norfolk should "be cut shorter er it weare long."

As the autumn approached, there were repeated rumours of rebellion in the north, which alarmed the court of Elizabeth. On inquiry, however, no trace of such a thing could be discovered, and the Earls of Northumberland and Westmoreland, when questioned, gave such apparently honest and satisfactory answers, that the Government was perplexed. Suddenly, however, in the commencement of October, the two earls received a summons to York on the queen's business, and the Earl of Sussex was instructed when he once had them, to forward them to London. The fate of Norfolk, and their consciousness of their actual secret proceedings, determined them to disobey the summons.