Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 15.djvu/347

 the reign of Edward VI she continued to reside chiefly in the north, but with Mary's accession her star was once more in the ascendant. Mary made her her special friend and confidante, gave her apartments in Westminster Palace, bestowed on her a grant of revenue from the taxes on the wool trade, amounting to three thousand merks annually, and, above all, assigned her precedency over Elizabeth. It was in fact to secure the succession of Lady Margaret in preference to Elizabeth that an effort was made to convict Elizabeth of being concerned in the Wyatt conspiracy. Elizabeth, notwithstanding this, on succeeding to the throne received her with seeming cordiality and kindness, but neither bestowed on her any substantial favours nor was in any degree deceived as to her sentiments. Lady Lennox found that she could better serve her own purposes in Yorkshire than at the court, and Elizabeth, having already had experiences which made confidence in her intentions impossible, placed her and her husband under vigilant espionage (ib. i. 126). The result was as she expected, and there cannot be the least doubt that Lady Lennox's Yorkshire home had become the centre of catholic intrigues. No conspiracy of a sufficiently definite kind for exposure and punishment was at first discovered, but Elizabeth, besides specially excluding her from the succession, brought into agitation the question of her legitimacy. Lady Lennox manifested no resentment. She prudently determined, since her own chances of succeeding to the throne of England were at least remote, to secure if possible the succession of both thrones to her posterity, by a marriage between her son Lord Darnley and Queen Mary of Scotland, who was next heir to Elizabeth. Though the progress of the negotiations cannot be fully traced, it must be supposed that the arrangement, if not incited by the catholic powers, had their special approval. For a time it seemed that the scheme would miscarry. Through the revelation of domestic spies it became known prematurely. She was therefore summoned to London, and finally her husband was sent to the Tower (ib. For. Ser. 1561–2, entry 644), while she and Lord Darnley were confined in the house of Sir Richard Sackville at Sheen. While there an inquiry was set on foot in regard to her treasonable intentions towards Elizabeth (see Articles against Lady Lennox, fifteen counts in all; ib. For. Ser. 1562, entry 26; Depositions of William Forbes, ib. 34; and Notes for the Examination of the Countess of Lennox, ib. 91). It cannot be supposed that Elizabeth became satisfied of the sincerity of her friendship, but Lady Lennox wrote her letters with so skilful a savouring of flattery that gradually Elizabeth exhibited symptoms of reconciliation. Lady Lennox's protests that ‘it was the greatest grief she ever had to perceive the little love the queen bears her’ (ib. 121), and that the sight of ‘her majesty's presence’ would be ‘most to her comfort,’ induced Elizabeth to try at last the experiment of kindness. She received her liberty, and soon afterwards she and her husband became ‘continual courtiers,’ and were ‘much made of’ (ib. 1563, entry 1027), while the son, Lord Darnley, won Elizabeth's high commendation by his proficiency on the lute. The suspicions of Elizabeth being thus for the time lulled, Lennox was, in September 1564, permitted to return to Scotland, carrying with him a letter from Elizabeth recommending Mary to restore him and his wife to their estates (ib. Scot. Ser. i. 51). Through the expert diplomacy of Sir James Melville, on whom Lady Lennox left the impression that she was ‘a very wyse and discret matroun’ (Memoirs, p. 127), Darnley was even permitted to join his father, and to visit Scotland at the very time that Elizabeth was recommending Leicester as a husband for Mary. Lady Lennox also took advantage of the return of Melville to Scotland to entrust him with graceful presents for the queen, the Earl of Moray, and the secretary Lethington, ‘for she was still in gud hope,’ says Sir James, that ‘hir sone my Lord Darley suld com better speid than the Erle of Leycester, anent the marriage with the quen’ (ib.) The important support of Morton to the match was ultimately also secured by her renunciation of her claims to the earldom of Angus (Hist. MSS. Comm. 3rd Rep. 394). Elizabeth, on discovering too late how cleverly she had been outwitted, endeavoured to prevent or delay the marriage by committing Lady Lennox to some place where she might ‘be kept from giving or receiving intelligence’ (Cal. State Papers, For. Ser. 1564–6, entry 1224). On 22 April she was commanded to keep her room (, v. 674), and on 20 June she was sent to the Tower (inscription discovered in the Tower in 1834, reproduced in facsimile in Queens of Scotland, ii. 402). In the beginning of March 1566–7, after Darnley's murder, she was removed to her old quarters at Sheen, and shortly afterwards was set at liberty. While her husband made strenuous but vain efforts to secure the conviction of Bothwell for the murder, Lady Lennox was clamorous in her denunciation of Mary to the Spanish ambassador in London (, History of England, cab. ed. viii. 91, 114). For several years the event