The History of England, Volume IV Elizabeth The queen of Scots marries the earl of Darnley
by David Hume
After two years had been spent in evasions and artifices,u Mary’s subjects and counsellors, and probably herself, began to think it full time, that some marriage were concluded, and lord Darnley, son of the earl of Lenox, was the person, in whom most men’s opinions and wishes centered. He was Mary’s cousin-german, by the lady Margaret Douglas, niece to Harry VIII. and daughter of the earl of Angus, by Margaret, queen of Scotland. He had been born and educated in England, where the earl of Lenox had constantly resided, since he had been banished by the prevailing power of the house of Hamilton: And as Darnley was now in his twentieth year, and was a very comely person, tall and delicately shaped, it was hoped, that he might soon render himself agreeable to the queen of Scots. He was also by his father a branch of the same family with herself; and would, in espousing her, preserve the royal dignity in the house of Stuart: He was, after her, next heir to the crown of England; and those who pretended to exclude her on account of her being a foreigner, had endeavoured to recommend his title, and give it the preference. It seemed no inconsiderable advantage, that she could, by marrying him, unite both their claims; and as he was by birth an Englishman, and could not, by his power or alliances, give any ground or suspicion to Elizabeth, it was hoped, that the proposal of this marriage would not be unacceptable to that jealous princess.
Elizabeth was well informed of these intentions;w and was secretly not displeased, with the projected marriage between Darnley and the queen of Scots.x She would rather have wished, that Mary had continued for ever in a single life: But finding little probability of rendering this scheme effectual, she was satisfied with a choice, which freed her at once from the dread of a foreign alliance, and from the necessity of parting with Leicester, her favourite. In order to pave the way to Darnley’s marriage, she secretly desired Mary to invite Lenox into Scotland, to reverse his attainder, and to restore him to his honours and fortune.y And when her request was complied with, she took care, in order to preserve the friendship of the Hamiltons and her other partizans in Scotland, to blame openly this conduct of Mary.z [28th July.] Hearing that the negotiation for Darnley’s marriage advanced apace, she gave that nobleman permission, on his first application, to follow his father into Scotland: But no sooner did she learn, that the queen of Scots was taken with his figure and person, and that all measures were fixed for espousing him, than she exclaimed against the marriage; sent Throgmorton to order Darnley immediately, upon his allegiance, to return to England; threw the countess of Lenox and her second son into the Tower, where they suffered a rigorous confinement; seized all Lenox’s English estate; and, though it was impossible for her to assign one single reason for her displeasure,a she menaced, and protested, and complained, as if she had suffered the most grievous injury in the world.
The politics of Elizabeth, though judicious, were usually full of duplicity and artifice; but never more so than in her transactions with the queen of Scots, where there entered so many little passions and narrow jealousies, that she durst not avow to the world the reasons of her conduct, scarcely to her ministers, and scarcely even to herself. But besides a womanish rivalship and envy against the marriage of this princess, she had some motives of interest for feigning a displeasure on the present occasion. It served her as a pretence for refusing to acknowledge Mary’s title to the succession of England; a point to which, for good reasons, she was determined never to consent. And it was useful to her for a purpose, still more unfriendly and dangerous, for encouraging the discontents and rebellion of the Scottish nobility and ecclesiastics.b
Nothing can be more unhappy for a people than to be governed by a sovereign, attached to a religion different from the established; and it is scarcely possible that mutual confidence can ever, in such a situation, have place between the prince and his subjects. [1565.] Mary’s conduct had been hitherto, in every respect, unexceptionable, and even laudable; yet had she not made such progress in acquiring popularity, as might have been expected from her gracious deportment and agreeable accomplishments. Suspicions every moment prevailed on account of her attachment to the catholic faith, and especially to her uncles, the open and avowed promoters of the scheme for exterminating the professors of the reformed religion throughout all Europe. She still refused to ratify the acts of parliament which had established the reformation; she made attempts for restoring to the catholic bishops some part of their civil jurisdiction;c and she wrote a letter to the council of Trent, in which, besides professing her attachment to the catholic faith, she took notice of her title to succeed to the crown of England, and expressed her hopes of being able, in some period, to bring back all her dominions to the bosom of the church.d The zealots among the protestants were not wanting, in their turn, to exercise their insolence against her, which tended still more to alienate her from their faith. A law was enacted, making it capital, on the very first offence, to say mass any where, except in the queen’s chapel;e and it was with difficulty that even this small indulgence was granted her: The general assembly importuned her anew to change her religion; to renounce the blasphemous idolatry of the mass, with the tyranny of the Roman Antichrist; and to embrace the true religion of Christ Jesus.f As she answered with temper, that she was not yet convinced of the falsity of her religion or the impiety of the mass; and that her apostacy would lose her the friendship of her allies on the continent; they replied, by assuring her, that their religion was undoubtedly the same which had been revealed by Jesus Christ, which had been preached by the apostles, and which had been embraced by the faithful in the primitive ages; that neither the religion of Turks, Jews, nor Papists was built on so solid a foundation as theirs; that they alone, of all the various species of religionists, spread over the face of the earth, were so happy as to be possessed of the truth; that those who hear, or rather who gaze on the mass, allow sacrilege, pronounce blasphemy, and commit most abominable idolatry; and that the friendship of the King of Kings was preferable to all the alliances in the world.g
