1568.] MARY S ESCAPE TO ENGLAND. 49 troops were double the number, their leaders wished to wait the return of Huntley and Ogilvie, who were gone to the north to assemble their vassals. Meanwhile they proposed to place the queen for security in the castle of Dumbarton: but, on their way thither, on the 13th of May, the regent brought them to action, at a place named Langside Hill, and routed them in the space of a quarter of an hour. Mary, who from an adjacent eminence viewed the fight, saw at once that all was lost. She turned, urged her horse to speed, and, having failed in an attempt to reach Dumbarton, rode without halting to Dundrennan Abbey, near Kirkcudbright, on the Solway Frith, a distance of sixty Scottish miles. Lord Herries and a few others, among whom was the French ambassador, accompanied her flight. What was this wretched princess now to do? To make her escape to the Highlands was difficult, if not impossible, and the toils and privations she might have to undergo when she reached them were not easy to appreciate. To escape to France was equally difficult; pride forbade her to appear as a fugitive where she had reigned a queen; the prospect of being shut up in a nunnery (the course which the French government had proposed for her) was probably not an agreeable one; and an ignominious death in all probability awaited her if she fell into the hands of her enraged subjects. There remained but one course, a flight into England. Elizabeth had of late exerted herself warmly in her favour, and might be disposed to assert her cause. She therefore directed Herries to write, on the 15th of May, to Mr. Lowther, the governor of Carlisle, to know if she might come thither in safety. She did not, however, venture to wait for a reply fearing to fall into the power of her enemies, she embarked next day, with Lord Herries and about twenty attendants, in a fishing-boat, and landed at Workington. The gentry of the vicinity conducted her, with all due respect, to Cockermouth, whence Lowther brought her to Carlisle. She had little or no VOL. III.-E money, and not even a change of clothes when she landed in England. Mary lost no time in writing to Elizabeth: assu ming, as she did on all occasions, that she was an innocent and injured person, she required to be admitted to the queen's presence, and to be restored to her authority by force. The English council took the case into most grave and solemn consideration: they weighed the arguments on all sides; they viewed the dangers likely to arise to England, and to Protestantism in general; they saw equal peril in suffering Mary to go to France or Spain, or to return to Scotland; and they decided that she should be detained for the present in England. They may certainly have been swayed by secret prejudice, or they may have fancied danger that was but imaginary: but, beyond question, they did what they believed to be right; and they must have known what the dangers to be apprehended really were far better than we can do. Leaving, then, declamation to the advocates of Mary, we hesitate not to say that, under the circumstances, the council acted wisely and well in our opinion. To Mary's request for a personal interview it was replied, that till the murder of Darnley and the subsequent events were explained, Elizabeth could not, with honour, admit her into her presence: but that, if Mary cleared herself on a judicial inquiry, the queen would chastise her rebellious subjects and restore her by force of arms. Mary and her fast friend, Lord Herries, long struggled against the proposed inquiry: at length she consented that Elizabeth "should send for the noblemen of Scotland, that they might answer, before such noblemen of England as should be chosen by her, why they had deposed their queen." Mary was now (July 28) at Lord Scroop's castle of Bolton, in Yorkshire, whither she had been removed from Carlisle. It may be here noticed, as an instance of the duplicity of which Mary was capable, that she who, when in power, would not even listen to the Scottish Reformed clergy, now affected great veneration for the English liturgy, was often present at the Protestant 1568.] CONFERENCE AT YORK. 51 worship, chose a Protestant clergyman for her chaplain, listened with attention and apparent pleasure while he exposed the errors of Romanism, and seemed on the point of becoming a convert.* On the 4th of October, the conference, as it was termed, was opened at York. The Duke of Norfolk, the Earl of Sussex, and Sir Ralph Sadler were the English commissioners; Mary was represented by Lesly, bishop of Ross, Lord Herries, and five other persons; on the part of the king and parliament of Scotland appeared the regent, the lords Morton and Lindsay, and others; and among their assistants were Lethington, and the celebrated George Buchanan. Mary's agents commenced by demanding justice for the various indignities and injuries offered to her, from the first revolt to her flight into England. Murray was now in a difficult situation: if he should produce the proofs which he had of the queen's guilt, he would cut off all hope of reconciliation; and if he did not, he in effect would allow that he was a rebel. He took refuge in forms and verbal distinctions: his defence, therefore, was feeble, and Mary's advocate had plainly the advantage. Finding that he must advance, he was anxious to ascertain if Elizabeth would secure him against the consequences, in case of his making the accusation and proving its truth. With this view he privately laid before the commissioners the letters, sonnets, and marriage contracts of Mary to Bothwell. Of the genuineness of these documents they declared themselves convinced, and they wrote to that effect to the queen. Elizabeth now deemed it advisable to have the conference more at hand; and it was accordingly removed to Hampton Court, with Mary's full approbation, who still reckoned that Murray would not venture to produce his strong evidence. Cecil and Bacon, with Lord Clinton, and the earls of Leices * Robertson says, it is impossible to believe she was sincere; but he adds, "nor can anything mark more strongly the wretchedness of her condition and the excess of her fears, than that they betrayed her into dissimulation in a matter concerning which her sentiments were at all other times scrupulously delicate." ter and Arundel, were added to the commission. Lennox now came forward, and openly charged the queen with the murder of his son. Murray was obliged to proceed in his charge and produce his proofs. When Herries and Lesly saw the blow, which they had long warded, at length struck, they refused to answer, unless their mistress "were allowed to justify herself in the presence of the Queen of England, the whole nobility of the kingdom, and the ambassadors of foreign states." But it was now too late to object to the present made of proceeding. They in effect confessed that the evidence now produced could not be refuted. "The objections," says Hume, "made to the authority of these papers are, in general, of small force but, were they ever so specious, they cannot now be hearkened to, since Mary, at the time when the truth could have been fully cleared, did in effect ratify the evidence against her, by recoiling from the inquiry at the very critical moment, and refusing to give an answer to the accusation of her enemies." : We may now assume that Elizabeth and her ministers had not the slightest doubt of Mary's guilt. Still, though the queen dismissed Murray with kindness, and made him a loan of £5000 ($24,000) for the expenses of his journey, she would not sanction the principle of the right of the people to depose their sovereigns, by treating with him as regent or acknowledging the young king of Scotland. As Bolton was in a part abounding with Catholics, Mary was now removed to Tutbury, in Staffordshire, a seat of the Earl of Shrewsbury; still liberty was offered to her if she would resign her crown or associate her son with her in the government, Murray to have the regency during the prince's minority. She refused, justly alleging that such an act would be a confession of her guilt. She demanded to be allowed to go to France; but Elizabeth was too apprehensive of the danger of that course; and, though she knew that Mary's presence in England might cause much mischief, she chose it as the lesser evil, in reliance on her own fortitude and address. 1568.] MARY AND NORFOLK. 53 Yet, at this very time, some of the leading English nobility were engaged on the side of Mary. During the conference at York, the subtle Lethington hinted to the Duke of Norfolk a match between him, now a widower, and the Queen of Scots. Norfolk listened to the offer, but he stated that the letters which he had seen with Murray made him hesitate. A communication seems to have been opened with Mary, who showed no disinclination to the proposed alliance. At Hampton Court Murray himself made the same proposal to Norfolk. Those who will allow the regent no virtue say that he was insincere, and that his only motive was to secure his life, as Norton, one of Norfolk's partisans, intended to waylay and murder him on his return home through the north. But we may surely as well suppose that he was also actuated by an honest desire to see his sister married to an English nobleman of the highest rank and a Protestant, and the peace and happiness of the two kingdoms thus permanently secured. After Murray's departure Norfolk associated himself with the earls of Leicester, Arundel, Pembroke, 2nd others, both Catholics and Protestants; and Sir Nicholas Throgmorton also engaged warmly in the project. A letter was written by Leicester to the Queen of Scots, and signed by the rest, recommending Norfolk to her for a husband, but stipulating for a renunciation of all claims to the throne of England during the lives of Elizabeth and her heirs, for a perpetual league between the two kingdoms, and for the establishment of the Protestant religion in Scotland. Mary returned a favourable reply, and the confederates went on strengthening themselves. It is said, too, that the kings of France and Spain were secretly consulted and gave their approbation. The previous consent of Elizabeth, however, was all along supposed; but they seem to have reckoned on making their party so strong that she would not venture to refuse it. It seems strange to see so many of her principal nobles (even Leicester included) thus, as it were, in a |