Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 7.djvu/265

 i 5 6 5 .] THE EMBASSY OF DE SILVA. 245 February; and a week later he was introduced to Mary at Wemyss Castle in Fife. As yet he had but few friends : the most powerful of the Catholic nobles looked askance at him ; the Cardinal of Lorraine, the Cardinal of Guise, and the widowed Duchess, misunder- standing the feeling of his friends in England, imagined that in accepting a youth who had been brought up at Elizabeth's Court, the Queen of Scots was throwing up the game. 1 The Archbishop of Glasgow, Mary's minister in Paris a Beton, and therefore an hereditary enemy of Lennox sent an estafette to Madrid in the hope that Philip would dissuade her from a step which he regarded as fatal ; and though Melville, who was in the confidence of the English Catholics, assured her ' that no marriage was more in her interest, seeing it would render her title to the succession of the crown unquestionable/ although Rizzio, 'the known minion of the Pope/ threw himself into Darnley's intimacy so warmly * that they would lie sometimes in one bed to- gether/ 2 Mary Stuart either disguised her resolution, or delayed the publication of it till Philip's answer should arrive. She had not yet relinquished hope of extracting concessions from Elizabeth by professing a 1 "When Mary's final resolution to marry Darnley was made known in Paris, Sir Thomas Smith wrote to Leicester, ' The Cardinal of Guise, Madame de Guise, and the Scottish ambassador, are in a marvellous agony for the news of the marriage of the Scottish Queen with the Lord Darnley. They have received letters out of Scotland from some friends there, which when they had read, they fell weeping all that night.' Smith to Leicester, April, 1565 : French MSS. Rolls House. 2 CALDERWOOD.