Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 11.djvu/323

 4583.] THE JESUITS Iff SCOTLAND &'J had entered with La Mothe Fenelon for the transport of thf. ycung King into France. He described all the par- ticulars. He named the vessel in which the King was to be brought over. It belonged to himself. It was fitting in a French port as if for trade, and was really going to Kirkcudbright. He advised the Queen to send a ship secretly to cruise on the coast, when without fail she would secure her prize. 1 This too is explicable if we suppose Len- nox to have wished to sow distrust between Elizabeth and the confederate Lords. It is less easy to understand what appears like a deliberate betrayal of the Queen of Scots and of her friends at Elizabeth's own Court. He expressed a wish to go in person to London and deal with the Queen at first hand. ' The Duke proposes/ wrote Cobham, ' to shew at his repair to her Majesty a letter written to him from the Queen, of Scots, directed to Dumbarton, wishing him to stay in those parts ; offering that her friends in Scotland should join their forces with his : her confederates in England would then shew themselves in his favour. And since his being in this place the Queen of Scots has written again, declaring that she understood by her friends about her Majesty the conference he had passed with her whereat he quitted himself honourably, assuring him that the Queen of England should intend nothing against him but she should be advertised thereof. Which letter he keeps to deliver to her Majesty, intend- 1 Cobham to Walsingham, May r : MSS. France.