Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 9.djvu/205

 1570.] THE RISING OF THE NORTH. 191 party of the Queen of Scots. It was impossible for him to continue to work upon the terms which Elizabeth had hitherto imposed to do what she required as if he was her subject, yet to do it without recognition, with- out help, at the expense of himself and his friends. At such a crisis as the present to fly in the face of the tra- ditions of his country, was to expose himself to almost certain destruction by exasperating the national jea- lousv of the most sensitive people in the world. Such relations between them could not last, and it was high time that Elizabeth should know it. To her last demand for the extradition of the refugees the Regent replied by sending his secretary, Elphinstone, to Cecil ' with a private communication. 7 Many a bitter wrong had Murray to complain of, had he chosen to remember his personal grievances; but personal ill- treatment was never a matter on which he preferred to dwell. After touching on the rebellion, he ran briefly over the events of the three past years ; the murder of Darnley, the marriage of Mary Stuart with Bothwell, the sequestration of her person at Lochleven, her escape, and the battle at Langside. The flight into England had followed, and afterwards the practices of the Queen to sow sedition, to maintain Papists, to pre- tend title to the crown, to marry with the Duke of Norfolk, and to be restored to her own government while Murray himself had been forced to despair of the favour of the Queen's Majesty, 'by means that the said Scottish Queen had such favourers in England, as well of Papists as others that favoured her marriage.'