Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 7.djvu/289

 1565.] THE EMBASSY OF DE SILVA. 269 in every particular as the King of Spain advised. Although this conversation took place two months after Maitland's despatch to England, yet it spoke of a foregone conclusion which Elizabeth too surely antici- pated. In the first flurry of excitement she sent Lady Lennox to the Tower ; and uncertain whether she might not be too late, she proposed to send Sir Nicholas Throgmortoii on the spot to Scotland, to say that ' if the Queen of Scots would accept Leicester, she should be accounted and allowed next heir to the crown as though she were her own born daughter ; ' but ' as this was certain and true on one side, so was it also certain on the other that she would not do the like with any other person.' 1 The situation however was too serious to allow Elizabeth to persist in the Leicester foible. The narrow and irritating offer was suspended till it could be more maturely considered; and on the 1st of May the fitness or unfitness of the marriage of the Queen of Scots and Lord Darnley was discussed ' with long deliberation and argument ' in the English coun- cil. The result was a unanimous conclusion ' that the marriage with the Lord Darnley, being attended with such circumstances as did appear, was unmeet, unpro- fitable, directly prejudicial to the amity between the two Queens, and perilous to the concord of the realm.' But so little desirable did it seem to restrict the Queen of Scots' choice unnecessarily, so unjust it seemed to 1 First draft of instructions to Sir S. Throgmorton, April 24 ; /Scotch Mtiti. Holls House.