Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 11.djvu/514

 49$ XEtGN OF ELJZABETIf. [CH. 6f; ran to believe that he was deceiving her. She permitted him to send the Master of Gray to reside for the winter in London, to arrange, if possible, a separate treaty be- tween herself and the King of Scots, a treaty from which his mother was to be excluded. She proposed, at the same time, to make use of James's advances to her to extort terms out of Mary Stuart, should it prove convenient to drop the son and take up the mother : while James on his side, though he meant in all sin- cerity to secure his own interest if he could, at his mother's expense, yet, as Elizabeth might slip through his fingers, or might be overthrown by a Catholic re- volution, pretended to his mother that he was only dividing himself from her in appearance, and was play- ing a part to deceive the Queen of England. 1 The Queen of Scots, when informed of Gray's mission, professed to remember him merely as a boy, and to be innocent of all present knowledge of him, although, at that very time, they were in close and ciphered corre- spondence together ; while Gray himself, a pupil of Guise and the Jesuits, was carrying a fair face all round, to his master, to England, and to Mary Stuart, reserving his re- solution till he came to London, and intending to attach himself to the party which on the whole seemed most likely to succeed. Lastly, Walsingham, in universal distrust, had bribed M. Cherelles, Mauvissiere's secre- tary, to obtain access to Gray's ciphers and bring him copies of his secret correspondence. 1 The Queen of Scots to the Master of Gray. October 2 12 : MSS. MAKY QCEEN os 1 SCOTS.