Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 7.djvu/462

 442 REIGN OF ELIZABETH. [011.45. of Holy rood. He sent in word of his arrival but he said he would not enter as long as Murray, Argyle, and Maitland were in the palace. The Queen went out to him, carried him to her private apartments, and kept him there for the night. The next morning the council met and he was brought or led into their presence. There they sat a hard ring of stony faces : on one side the Lords of the Congregation who had risen in insur- rection to prevent his marriage with the Queen, whom afterwards he had pledged his honour to support and whom he had again betrayed now, by some inexplic- able turn of, fortune, restored to honour while he was himself an outcast ; on the other side Huntly, Caith- ness, Bothwell, Athol, the Archbishop of St Andrew's, all Catholics, all Bizzio's friends, yet hand in hand now with their most bitter enemies, united heart and soul to secure the English succession for a Scotch Princess, and pressing with the weight of unanimity on the English Parliament ; yet he who had been brought among them in the interest of that very cause was ex- cluded from share or concern in the prize ; every noble present had some cause of mortal enmity against him ; and as he stood before them desolate and friendless he must have felt how short a shrift was allowed in Scot- land for a foe whose life was inconTenient. The letter of the Earl of Lennox was read aloud. Mary Stuart said that she had tried in vain to draw from her husband the occasion of his dissatisfaction ; she trusted that he would tell the lords what he had concealed from herself; and then turning to him with