less implacable. An opportunity was offered for reopening the suit, and Cecil, by the Queen's order, sent a message through Mundt the English agent in Germany, to the new Emperor Maximilian, that although for his many excellent qualities the Queen would gladly have married Lord Robert Dudley, yet, finding it impossible, she had brought herself to regard Lord Robert as a brother, and for a husband was thinking of the Archduke. On the 12th of September a resolu

September. tion of council was taken to send an embassy to Vienna, ostensibly to congratulate Maximilian on his accession-in reality to feel the way towards 'the prince with the large head.'' A few days later, during an evening stroll through St James's Park, Elizabeth herself told the secret to de Silva, not as anything certain, but as a point towards which her thoughts were turning.3

The Queen of Scots meantime, to whom every uttered thought of Elizabeth was known, began to repent of her precipitate explosion of temper. She had obtained what she immediately desired in the return of

Cecil to Mundt, September 8, | Archduke. This may be very 1564: Jussu Reginæ. Burghley | strange, and therefore I pray you Papers, HAINES, vol. i. keep it very close.'-Cecil to Sir T. Smith, September 12, 1564: WRIGHT, vol. i.

2 Some one is to be sent with condolences on the death of the Emperor-Sir H. Sidney or Sir N. Throgmorton or I or Lord Robert; which it shall be I think nobody yet knoweth. But to tell you the truth, there is more meant than condolence or congratulation. It may be an intention for the marriage with the

3 De Silva to the Duchess of Parma, Sept. 23: MS. Simancas. Elizabeth said that the Court fool advised her to have nothing to do with Germans, who were a poor heavy-headed set.

Lennox; her chief anxiety was now to prevent the Austrian marriage, and to induce Philip, though she could not marry his son, to continue to watch over her interests. In September the Spanish ambassador in Paris wrote that his steps were haunted by Beton, Mary's minister; he had met the advances made to him with coldness and indifference; but Beton had pressed upon him with unwearied assiduity; desiring, as it appeared afterwards, to learn what Philip would do for his mistress in the event of her marriage with Darnley.

1

At the same time it was necessary to soothe Elizabeth, lest she might withdraw her protection, and allow Parliament to settle the succession unfavourably to the Scottish claims. Maitland therefore Having forfeited Cecil's confidence, the Queen of Scots obtained the services of a man who, without the faintest pretensions to statesmanship, was as skilled an intriguer as Europe possessed. Sixteen years had passed since Sir James Melville had gone as a boy with Monluc, Bishop of Valence, to the Irish Castle, where Monluc by his light ways was brought to shame. From the Bishop, Melville had passed to the Constable Montmorency. From Montmorency he had gone to the Elector Palatine, and had worked himself into a backstairs intimacy with European courts and princes. Mary Stuart herself had probably known him in France; and in the spring of 1564 she wrote to request him to return to

1 Don F. de Alava to Philip II., September 20, 1564: TEULET, vol. v.

VOL. VII.

14

Scotland to be employed in secret service. So highly she valued his abilities, that notwithstanding her poverty she settled on him an annual pension of a thousand marks-twice the income perhaps of the richest nobleman in Scotland. He was already acquainted with Elizabeth, who, according to his own account, had spoken confidentially with him about the Queen of Scots' marriage.

This Melville it was whom Mary Stuart now selected to be her instrument to pacify and cheat Elizabeth, to strengthen her party at the English Court, and to arrange with Lady Lennox for Darnley's escape to Scotland. She directed him to apologize to Elizabeth for the hasty letter which she had written, and to beg that it might be forgotten. He was to entreat her not to allow his mistress's interests to suffer any prejudice in Parliament; and further, he had secret instructions from Mary's own lips, the nature of which he indicates without explaining himself more completely-'to deal with the Spanish ambassador, Lady Margaret Douglas, and sundry friends she had in England of different opinions.'

2

Melville left Edinburgh towards the end of September, preceded by Randolph, who, after communicating with Elizabeth, was on the point of returning to Scotland

1 So Melville himself says in his | London on Michaelmas-day, when Memoirs; but Melville's credibility Lord Robert Dudley was created is a very open question. Earl of Leicester, and was present at the ceremony; 28 is perhaps a misprint for 20.

2 The copy of his instructions printed in his Memoirs is dated Sep

tember 28. But Melville was in

at the time of Melville's arrival. The information which Randolph had brought had been utterly unsatisfactory, and Elizabeth was harassed into illness and was in the last stage of despair. 'I am in such a labyrinth about the Queen of Scots,' she wrote on the 23rd of September to Cecil, that what to say to her or how to satisfy her I know not. I have left her letter to me all this time unanswered, nor can I tell what to answer now. Invent something kind for me which I can enter in Randolph's commission and give me your opinion about the matter itself.' 1

She was

In this humour Melville found Elizabeth. walking when he was introduced in the garden at Westminster. He was not a stranger, and the Queen rarely allowed herself to be long restrained by ceremony. She began immediately to speak of the Queen of Scots' despiteful letter' to her. 'She was minded,' she said, 'to answer it with another as despiteful' in turn. She took what she had written out of her pocket, read it aloud, and said that she had refrained from sending it only because it was too gentle.

Melville, accustomed to Courts and accustomed to Elizabeth, explained and protested and promised. With his excuses he mingled flattery, which she could swallow

1'In ejusmodi labyrintho posita | aliquid boni quod in mandatis scripsum de responso meo reddendo ad tis Randall dare possim, et in hâc Reginam Scotiæ, ut nesciam quo- causâ tuam opinionem mihi indica.' modo illi satisfaciam, quum neque Endorsed in Cecil's hand - 'The toto isto tempore illi ullum respon- Queen's Majesty's writing, being sum dederim, nec quid mihi dicen- sick, September 23.'-Scotch MSS dum nunc sciam. Invenias igitur Rolls House.

when mixed by a far less skilful hand; in his first interview he so far talked her into good humour that she did not send her angry letter;' and although he satisfied himself at the same time that she was dealing insincerely with his mistress, he perhaps in this allowed his suspicions to mislead him. Elizabeth was only too happy to believe in promises which it was her interest to find true. Personally she cared as little for the Queen of Scots as the Queen of Scots cared for her; but Mary Stuart's position and Mary Stuart's claims created an intense political difficulty for which there appeared but one happy solution; and Elizabeth, so far as can be seen from the surface of the story, clutched at any prospect of a reasonable settlement with an eager credulity. Melville might indeed naturally enough believe Elizabeth as insincere as he knew himself to be. At the very moment when he was delivering Mary's smooth messages, apologies, and regrets he knew himself to be charged with a secret commission to the Catholic conspirators; but Elizabeth's duplicity does not follow from his own, and she may at least be credited with having been honest when she had no interest in being otherwise. She saw the Scotch ambassador daily, and the Queen of Scots' marriage was the incessant subject of discussion. Melville said his mistress would refer it to a commission. Murray and Maitland might meet Bedford and Lord Robert at Berwick to talk it

over.

'Ah!' she said, 'you make little of Lord Robert, naming him after the Earl of Bedford. I mean to make