on which Mary made some dilatory and evasive answers, and concluded by saying, "I do not look for the kingdom; my sister may marry and live longer than myself; my respect is to what may be for my commodity (policy) and the contentment of my friends, who, I believe, would hardly agree that I should embase myself so far as that:" words which seem clearly to imply that favourable terms respecting the succession had been held out if she should. consent to the marriage recommended to her by Elizabeth. Lord Robert Dudley was the younger son of the regent duke of Northumberland, and, consequently, a brother of lord Guilford Dudley, lady Jane Grey's husband. Writers familiarly acquainted with him represent his person as goodly, his countenance as singularly well featured, and in his youth of a sweet aspect. His high forehead gave a dignity to this soft expression; he possessed the arts, the attainments, and the graceful manners which flourish in courts. Intoxicated by the favour of the queen, his ambition aspired beyond the level of his capacity, either in council or in the field. Placed so near the summit of grandeur, he is charged, on imperfect evidence, with murdering two of his wives as impediments on his way to the throne. None of his contemporaries ascribe any merit to him but the shallow and showy qualities of a courtier. The most obvious explanation of the favour enjoyed by such a man at the court of the wisest of queens, must be owned to be found in the weaknesses to which female sovereigns are peculiarly liable. Yet it is not easy to study the virtues or the vices of Elizabeth without inclining to an opinion, that the same pleasure in the exercise of supreme power, the same pride of rule, the same aversion from subjection which made her impatient of the authority of a husband, would also dispose her to reject the often harsher yoke of an illicit lover. Fancies and preferences, especially in haughty women, do not always become passionate attachments. Women may be touched who will not be subdued; and many pass their lives on the brink of weaknesses into which they never fall. Elizabeth is said to have inherited from Henry VIII. a taste for handsome attendants, as pageants of the court; a preference which might have been softened by the sex of Elizabeth, without outweighing her sense of dignity, overpowering her hatred of a master, or silencing the voice of moral principle, which, however sometimes disobeyed, was no stranger to her breast. As there is no doubt that Dudley aspired to the hand of Elizabeth, he must have professed, and may have felt, a repugnance to an union with the most beautiful, and most accomplished, queen in Europe. The negotiation on the subject continued during the whole year 1564. On condition of its success, it appears that Elizabeth was ready to grant those very favourable terms which she authorised Randolph to hold out in November; which some writers describe as the adoption of Mary as a daughter or sister, with the recognition of her rights as presumptive heiress to the crown. So late as the 5th of February, 1565, Randolph, in his despatches from Edinburgh, assured his court of the inclination of the queen of Scots to marry the earl of Leicester, and the great probability of the successful issue of his embassy.* Some historians have, very gratuitously, supposed these negotiations on the part of England to have been insincere, and intended only to prolong the celibacy of Mary, or at least to divert her from a foreign alliance. Undoubtedly the latter purpose always influenced Elizabeth: but can any one seriously believe that, if the queen of Scots had shown a willingness to wed Leicester, Elizabeth either could with plausibility or would in prudence have rejected an arrangement which she herself proposed, and which placed Scotland under the administration of her most trusty lieutenant? Every political reason pleaded for the real and earnest pursuit of the marriage. Elizabeth showed that she had herself no Cecil's Diary in Murdin's State Papers, 506-508. February 5. 1565, and Keith, 269.; who adds from himself, "as we may conjecture, by declaring our queen presumptive heiress to the crown of England; " an in ference which Dr. Robertson, by an oversight very unusual with him, alleges as part of the despatch, and relies on as an historical fact. Robertson, i. 109. purpose to wed Leicester; nor is it reasonable to impute to a politic sovereign the sacrifice of her highest interest to amorous frailties: and it is incredible that she should have been influenced by so chimerical a project as that of perpetuating the widowhood of a queen, for whose hand all Europe was then pouring forth competitors. Some plausibility has been given to this supposed delusion practised on Mary by the unexpected backwardness of Elizabeth, at the critical moment, in sacrificing expectations relating to the succession, which her former language had been calculated to excite. But she inherited much of that jealousy of pretenders, of competitors, and of heirs, which the Tudor princes caught from their originally irregular title. This jealousy was confirmed by the revolts against Henry VIII.; and still more by those religious revolutions, which afforded alarming proofs how easily established institutions might be overthrown. * As the prospect of marriage with Leicester vanished, another candidate presented himself, whose appearance was attended by almost instantaneous success. This was Henry Stuart, lord Darnley, the son of the earl of Lennox, by lady Margaret Douglas, daughter of Margaret Tudor, queen of Scots, by the second marriage of the last princess with the earl of Angus. The countess of Lennox was the grand-daughter of Henry VII. by his eldest daughter, and followed Mary in the order of hereditary succession to the crown of England. The earl of Lennox was the representative of an ancient branch of the royal family, who had acquired high honour and large possessions by marrying the heiress of the old thanes and earls of Lennox, whose origin is lost in the darkness of the earliest times. Henry Stuart was born in England; his parents had been driven into exile; and lady Lennox herself was born in Northumberland, where The following words in one of Cecil's despatches contain the best key to Elizabeth's fluctuations:-"I see the queen's majesty very desirous to have my lord of Leicester to be the Scottish queen's husband; but when it cometh to the conditions which are demanded, I see her then remiss of her earnestness. 30th Dec. 1564."-Ellis, ii. 294. The date of the letter, and the words "conditions which are demanded," which must refer to the succession, seem to render it decisive. her mother the queen had taken refuge. In the autumn of 1564, the earl of Lennox went to Scotland with letters recommendatory of his suit from Elizabeth, in order that he might obtain a reversal of his attainder, and restitution of his honours and estates. It is not unlikely that the English ministers, when they began to doubt the success of Leicester, might have turned their thoughts to Lennox's return * as a means of procuring Mary's hand for Darnley; an individual not formidable, a subject of Elizabeth, the remaining fortune of whose family was in England, where it formed some pledge of his adherence to the English interest. Elizabeth, however, before the measure was adopted, attempted to dissuade Mary from it, lest it might offend the powerful house of Hamilton, the grantees of Lennox's estates. † The extreme displeasure of Mary at this dissuasion seems rather to indicate that the proposal originated in the court of Scotland; and an attempt of Elizabeth, some years before §, to promote Lennox's restoration, leads to the inference, that though some other motives may have concurred, yet her principal object was to do an act of good nature to lady Lennox, the nearest kinswoman of both queens. That it was an artifice contrived by Elizabeth to embroil the marriage with Dudley, by the interposition of a new competitor, is an assertion without and against proof; since there is the fullest evidence that the English government solicited and desired that marriage seven months afterwards. || Lord Darnley followed his father in February. majesty," says sir James Melville," took well with him, and said he was the lustiest ¶ and best-proportioned * Sir J. Melville's Memoirs, p. 108. Ed. 1827. "Her † By letter of 5th July, Keith, 253. Cecil's Diary, Murdin, 757. Melville, 108. In 1599. Haynes, 213. Melville, p. 112. Keith, 257. It is evident that Randolph did not despair of success before the 15th or 18th of April, 1565. Keith, Appendix, 158, 159. MS despatches in State Paper Office. The suspicions even of Sir James Melville, in memoirs, of which a part, if not the whole, was certainly written in 1593, cannot prevail over strictly contemporary despatches. The only defect of this excellent writer is, that his diplomatic life made him too much a believer in over-refined policy. f Handsomest. Spenser. See Johnson and Jamieson, with the authority of lang man that she had seen; for he was of high stature, lang and small, even and brent up well instructed from his youth in all honest † and comely exercises."‡ Elizabeth and Melville smiled at the effeminacy, perhaps also at the ignorance and incapacity, of the beardless stripling. But Mary, after a moment's displeasure, or affectation of it, at the presumption with which he offered himself, liked him better the more she knew him ; which would have been more honourable to her if his attractions had been more refined, and if she had not remarked his animal beauties with too critical an eye. She determined to marry him. He betrayed partialities for the catholic party so imprudently as soon to rouse both the queen of England and the Scotch protestants against the union. Randolph, the English resident, cautiously insinuates his suspicions of Mary's rising passion to his court within a fortnight of Darnley's arrival.§ Argyle, a zealous protestant, expressed great apprehension of Darnley's progress. Moray said that the match would be followed by unkindness to England, and was "the most sorrowful of men." || A rumour was prevalent that Moray was about to leave the court, displeased at the more open parade of catholic rites, which his prudence prevented so long as he enjoyed his sister's undivided confidence. T My suspicions, says Randolph, on the 18th of April, are bitterly confirmed. Many with grief see the fond folly of the queen. The godly (the protestants) cry out, and think themselves undone. All good men see the ruin of their country in the marriage with Darnley.** In this temper of all the Scotch friends of the English connection, Maitland, who arrived at Westminster on the same 18th of April, could * Straight, even.-Jamieson. A word of difficult derivation. + Becoming his station. Sir J. Melville, from early and long residence in France, complains that he had forgotten his mother tongue. La comtesse sa mère lui ayant fait apprendre à jouer de luth, à danser, et autre honnêtes exercises."- Castelnau, liv. v. c. 12. Melville, 134. MSS. State Paper Office. Randolph's despatch of 27th February. 1565: Darnley having arrived on the 13th. Ditto, 15th March. Ditto, 17th March. **Ditto, 7th April. Keith, App. 159. |