Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 9.djvu/270

 256 REIGN OF ELIZABETH. [CH. 54. came the chief adviser of the Scottish Queen in her English prison, and the mainstay of her party through- out the island. 1 Randolph, hardly able as yet to realize the change which had passed over him, addressed him on the old terms, appealed to his friendship, and reminded him of the especial reliance which Elizabeth placed in him. Maitland was aware that she trusted him, and intended to make use of her weakness. While Morton was addressing her through Randolph and Cecil, Mait- land approached her through Leicester. ' He wished/ he said, ' to explain to her distinctly the condition of Scottish parties. There were two parties there the King's and the Queen's : the first was composed of a certain number of the Nobility and the Commons, whom, as he understood, the Queen of England was advised to support; the other consisted of the heads of all the greatest families in the country, confident in the good- ness of their cause, and assured that all kings allowed their quarrel and would aid them accordingly. A second division had been created by the death of the Regent, grounded upon the regimen of the realm. The nobles who .had deposed the Queen claimed to govern in virtue of the commission which was extorted from her at Lochleven ; but even among those who had been hither- to for the King there were many who thought it neither 1 Randolph's account of him at this period is interesting. ' I doubt nothing of him now,' he wrote, ' so much as the length of his life. He hath only his heart whole and his stomach good ; with an honest mind much more given to policy than to Mr Knox's preaching. His legs are clean gone. His body so weak that it sustaineth not itself. His inward parts so feeble that to endure to neese he cannot for annoying the whole body. To this the blessed joy of a young wife hath brought him. Randolph to Cecil, March i.