be struck, requesting, and even expressly commanding, her uncle of Aumale to enforce the execution of her humane orders. The weather was clear till the day before the landing of the vessels, when they were surrounded by a fog so thick that the eye could see no object so far as from poop to prow. They were obliged to cast anchor in open sea, and to take soundings often ; and on Monday morning, the 19th of August, when the fog was dispersed, they found themselves so surrounded with rocks, that if they had not stopped they must have perished.*

A small English squadron, sent out, as has been said, in pursuit of Scottish pirates, saw the royal vessels, saluted them,—and, after searching the baggage vessels for pirates, dismissed the whole convoy amicably, except one vessel, which was suspected of having pirates on board.† That such pirates were then cruising in the Scottish sea is indisputable: for, on the 25th of August, Elizabeth sent to Mary a list of their names, desiring that they might be delivered up to justice; and, on the 6th of September, Mary answered that news of this disorder had reached her before she had left France; that on her arrival in Scotland she had prohibited suspicious cruisers; and that, on the receipt of Elizabeth's letter, 'she had ordered search to be made for the plunderers. That the English fleet saw the galleys, and might have captured them, is evident from the fact admitted by Cecil, that one of the ships was actually detained. The conduct of the English commanders towards Mary's vessels minutely corresponds with the assurance of Elizabeth, in her letter of the 16th of August, that she suspended her displeasure at the refusal to ratify the treaty, and had given

* Brantome, i. 119-125. Edit. Lond. 1779.

+ Mém. de Castelnau, liv. iii. c. i. Hardw. State Papers, 176. Cecil to Throgmorton. Brantome limits the duration of the fog to the last day. Castelnau mentions that the English vessels were seen from the queen's galleys; which must refer to a time before objects on the prow were invisible from the poop. They both corroborate the intelligence of Cecil.

These last letters (not yet published) are in the State Paper Office. They show that piracy was not a pretext. A letter from Randolph, in March, 1561, speaks of the pirates six months before the queen's voyage.

orders to her naval officers which were equivalent to a safe-conduct.

On landing at Leith, the queen and her company were obliged to mount the wretched hackney horses of the country, still more wretchedly caparisoned. The queen burst into tears, exclaiming," Are these the pomps, the splendours, and the superb animals on which I used to ride in France?" When they arrived at the abbey of Holyrood*, the French courtiers owned that it was a fine building, and that it did not partake of the barbarism of the country. In the evening, however, they were annoyed by a multitude of 500 or 600 persons, who sung Psalms under the windows, an early and offensive badge of their Calvinism, -playing on sorry rebecks and unstrung fiddles, with such neglect of all harmony, that the Parisian connoisseurs thought it worth their while to criticise their performance. Next morning, the queen's chaplain narrowly escaped with his life from the hands of the fanatical rabble, who viewed him with horror as a priest of Baal.† “Such,” said the queen, “is the beginning of welcome and allegiance from my subjects: what may be the end I know not; but I venture to foretell that it will be very bad."

It would have perplexed a philosophical moralist to have estimated the comparative depravity of the country where she had lived, and of the country where she came to rule in falsehood, circumvention, in faithless disregard of engagements, in every black crime which requires hateful forethought and wicked contrivance, the court of Catherine de' Medici was unmatched; in shame-> less and gross dissolution of manners it surpassed every other the number of political atrocities was probably greater at Paris than at Edinburgh. The guilty deeds to which men are instigated by violent passions were, in all likelihood, most numerous in Scotland: the reformation, which taught more severe manners, had not yet breathed the Christian spirit of love and charity; but from the eye of the young princess the varnish of manner and * Holy Cross. + Brantome, i. 123.

pageantry of apparel, however slight and unequal, and the little tincture of arts and letters which began to spread a somewhat fairer hue over the society of France, altogether hid the near approach to equality of the two nations with respect to the weightier matters of the law. Notwithstanding the forebodings of Mary on her arrival, her administration was for several years prudent and prosperous. The presbyterian establishment continued inviolate, without any enquiry into the irregularities of its origin. The revolts against legal authority were overlooked; and an act of oblivion was passed in the parliament of 1564.

During this period, the Scottish policy of Elizabeth continued to be governed by the same principle of countenancing and encouraging the protestant party, her natural and necessary allies. Mary's powerful and ambitious uncles were desirous of extending their sway by the marriage of their niece to a catholic prince. The policy of Elizabeth would disincline her to give that strength to the catholic presumptive heiress which a powerful or able husband would necessarily bestow. But, whatever her inclinations might be, it is not likely that so sagacious a woman would actively pursue a project of perpetual celibacy for a young and beautiful queen. The objects which were perhaps attainable, though with much difficulty, were to prevent her wedding a catholic or a foreign prince; because the latter might have formidable connections, and because he was likely to be of the catholic party. An Englishman was the person whom it would best suit the queen's policy that Mary should espouse and as Elizabeth had listened without displeasure to the proposal of the states of Scotland, that the earl of Arran should be her husband*, the like tender of the hand of an English subject could not in England be thought derogatory from the honour and dignity of the Scottish queen. Although it was as lawful for Elizabeth to prevent by fair means the accession of

* For this tender see the statute above cited; also the original suggestion, unpublished, in the State Paper Office, in February, 1561: to which queen Elizabeth's answer may be seen in Haynes, 364.

Scotland to her enemies by marriage, as it would be to hinder their conquest of a country on which the safety of her own dominions depended; yet her interference to impede the free choice of a husband by her cousin was a policy of a stern and obnoxious sort, which required much address, and all the mitigations of which so harsh a measure was susceptible. It was necessary to the political object that advances should be slowly made; that proposals should be suggested before they were avowed; that the temper of Mary should be sounded at every step; and that Elizabeth should sometimes retire quickly from a plan which should appear impracticable or hazardous. It was impossible, in a correspondence of two women on such a subject, that the passions and weaknesses of their sex should not mingle with their policy as sovereigns: if these considerations be kept in view, it will not be difficult to form a judgment on the following summary of the matrimonial negotiation, which will not import grave blame of either queen.

The offers made to Mary on the part of the archduke Charles of don Carlos, and other foreign princes, have been narrated at the same time with the proposals made to Elizabeth. Every such marriage of Mary was objectionable to Elizabeth for the most solid reasons of national security. The protestant nobility of Scotland dreaded a Roman catholic husband, especially if strengthened by foreign dominions. An alliance with a powerful monarch was unpopular among Scotchmen of all parties, as threatening that ancient independence of which a martial nation felt a generous jealousy, the guardian of their national rank,- a sentiment which atoned for many of the vices incident to their barbarism.

Mary, soon after her return to Scotland, solicited an interview with Elizabeth, to cement their friendship, and to settle their differences amicably. The queen of England had concluded a treaty with the prince of Condé, which will be presently more fully considered, for the defence of the protestants against the cruelty and perfidy

of the Guisian faction *; which naturally induced her to postpone such manifestation of friendship, until an amicable adjustment of the affairs of France should allow her to meet Mary without causing any suspicion that her zeal to resist the house of Lorrain had become lukewarm.t

Elizabeth made a nearer approach to the delicate subject of marriage in instructions to Randolph, her minister at Edinburgh, on the 16th of November, 1563, the day before he set out on his mission. In these instructions Cecil, who was the writer, discusses very ably the reasons which ought to regulate the choice of Mary; which he briefly stated to be, 1. The mutual affection of the wedded parties; 2. The approval of her own subjects; and, 3. The friendship of Elizabeth. On this last head Cecil, observed, that the queen, his mistress, could not think a foreign match conducive to the end; and he adds, that she disapproved of the means employed [by Mary's uncle the cardinal, of whose practices she was not ignorant ], for a husband in the emperor's family. Randolph was farther instructed to say from himself, by indirect speeches, that “nothing would content Elizabeth so much as Mary's choice of some noble person within the kingdom of England, having the qualities and conditions meet for such an alliance, [yea, perchance, (adds the queen in her own handwriting), such as she could hardly think we could agree unto,] and therewith be agreeable to both queens and both their nations;" or, as the words are reported by sir James Melville, "with whom her majesty might more readily and more safely declare and extend the good-will her majesty has to cause you to enjoy, before any creature, any thing she has, next herself or children." §

Randolph, some time after ||, suggested Robert Dudley;

* Dumont. Corps. Diplomat. pars 1. p. 94. Hampton Court, 20th Sept.1562. + Ellis's Letters, second series, vol. i. p. 267. Sir William Cecil to an unknown correspondent, 11th October, 1562.

MSS. in State Paper Office, in November, 1563, and March, 1564. The words between brackets are inserted in Cecil's MS. in the handwriting of Elizabeth.

Melville, 107.

Before January, 1564. MSS. correspondence. State Paper Office.