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CHAPTER VIII A QUEEN’S TROUBLES
Never had a queen a greater variety of difficulties to meet. If she favored the Catholics, the Protestants would not support her; the Puritans were beginning to be of some importance, and they were eager to have every trace of Catholicism destroyed; but if she introduced Protestant changes too rapidly, the Catholics might revolt. She wished, it is probable, to refuse her numerous suitors, but she needed to keep on friendly terms with each as far as possible. The royal treasury was low, and among the nations of Europe there was not one upon whose assistance England could count in case of need.

Such were Elizabeth’s troubles at the beginning of her reign, and as the months passed, the difficulties became even more complicated. Scotland133 was ruled by Mary’s mother, who acted as regent for her daughter. She was French and a Catholic, and as more and more of the Scotch became Protestants, they were determined to have freedom for Protestant worship. Persecution followed, imprisonment, torture, and burning at the stake. Then came a fierce revolt. By the aid of France this was suppressed, but the Protestants appealed to Elizabeth.

“No war, my lords, no war,” declared she to her council. “A queen does not lend aid to rebels.”

“The rebels are in a fair way to become the government,” suggested one councilor.

“England cannot afford war,” declared another. “We have no money to spend on fleets and armies.”

“The French are already in Scotland,” said one. “More will follow, and their next step will be across the border. If they are once in England, we shall have to raise armies whether we can or not.”

“True,” agreed another, “and surely it is better to fight them in Scotland than on our own soil.”

134 “If we attack the French, Philip will aid them and try to put Mary on our throne.”

“No, no,” shouted three or four voices. “To unite France, Scotland, and England under one ruler would weaken his own power. He’ll not do that.”

“This is a question of religion as well as policy,” said another. “Shall not the government of the church of England aid the Protestants of Scotland?”

This last argument did not count for very much with Elizabeth, but there was another one that did. She left the council and thought over the matter carefully and anxiously. “If I can get power in Scotland,” she said to herself, “I can induce the Scotch government to agree that Mary shall never claim the title of queen of England.” Money was borrowed from Antwerp, and England began to prepare for fighting.

France became uneasy and sent word to Elizabeth:—

“We do protest and remonstrate against the ruler of a neighboring kingdom giving aid to rebels and revolters.” The French well knew how sorely aggrieved the English felt at the loss135 of Calais, and as a bribe to the queen they offered to give her back the town and citadel if she would agree not to aid the Scotch Protestants.

Elizabeth knew then that the French feared her, and she replied:—

“So long as the Queen of Scots doth falsely claim to be also queen of this my realm, then so long must I guard myself in the way that seems to me wisest and best. To free my throne from the attacks of false claimants and so secure peace and safety for my people is worth far more to me than any little fishing village in a foreign country.”

The French were driven from Scotland, and a treaty was made agreeing that Mary should give up all claim to the throne of England. Mary had empowered her agents to make whatever terms they thought best, but when she saw this provision, she refused to sign the treaty.

One year later a beautiful young woman stood at the stern of a vessel, looking back with tearful eyes at the shore from which she had sailed. The twilight deepened, and night settled around her. She turned away. “Adieu, my beloved France,” she whispered, “farewell, farewell.”

136 Thus it was that a queen returned to her kingdom, for the fair young woman was Mary, Queen of Scots. Her husband had died, and there was no longer any place in France for her. Scotland asked her to return to the throne that had been her own ever since she was a few days old. She was only nineteen, and she was leaving the gay, merry court in which nearly all her life had been spent; she was leaving her friends and companions, and for what? Scotland was the land of her birth, but it was a foreign country to her. It was not like her sunny France, it was a land of mist and of cold, of plain habits and stern morals. The queen was coming to her own, but her own was strange to her.

Mary had asked Elizabeth’s permission to shorten the voyage by passing through England. “That must not be,” thought the English queen. “Her presence here would be the signal for all the discontented Catholics in the kingdom to follow her banner.” Permission was refused, unless Mary would agree beforehand to give up all claim to the English crown.

“I ask but Elizabeth’s friendship,” said Mary. “I do not trouble her state nor try to win over137 her subjects, though I do know there be some in her realm that are not unready to hear offers”—but she would not promise to give up her claim to the crown. She was fully as independent as Elizabeth, and she added regretfully, “I grieve that I so far forgot myself as to ask a favor that I needed not. Surely, I may go home into my own realm without her passport or license. I came hither safely, and I may have means to return.”

Scotland rejoiced that the queen had come, and welcomed her with bonfires and music and speeches of welcome. The Scotch supposed that they were pleasing her, but Mary wrote to her friends:—

“In Edinburgh when I would have slept, five or six hundred ragamuffins saluted me with wretched fiddles and little rebecks, and then they sang psalms loudly and discordantly; but one must have patience.”

No one can help feeling sympathy with the lonely girl of nineteen who had left all that she loved to come and rule over a country that seemed to her almost barbarous in contrast with her beloved France. She was a Catholic; most of her138 people were Protestants. She won many friends and admirers, but she never gained the confidence and steady affection of her people that made Elizabeth strong. The queen and her subjects grew further apart. Mary had been brought up to believe that the marriage of Anne Boleyn was not lawful, and that therefore she herself and not Elizabeth was the rightful queen of England. The French king had taught her to sign herself “Queen of Scotland and England.” Now that she had returned to Scotland, she dropped the latter part of the title, but demanded that Elizabeth should declare her heir to the throne, as she certainly was by all laws of the hereditary descent of the crown. Elizabeth firmly refused.

It was probable that Mary would marry, and it was a matter of importance to Elizabeth that the husband should not be one who could strengthen the Scotch claim to the throne. Mary consulted Elizabeth about one or two of her suitors, and suddenly the English queen surprised all Europe by offering to Mary the unwilling hand of her own favorite, the Earl of Leicester, and hinted, though in her usual equivocal fashion, that if139 Mary would marry the earl, she would be recognized as the next heir to the crown. “I would marry Robin myself,” declared the queen to Mary’s commissioner, Sir James Melville, “save that I am determined to wed no man.”

Elizabeth talked with Sir James most familiarly, and this woman who was so shrewdly guiding her millions of Englishmen and guarding her throne from Mary of Scotland, often seemed to think of nothing but whether she or her rival had the prettier face.

“Which is the fairer?” she demanded, “I or the queen of Scotland?”

“Your Majesty is the fairest queen in England, and ours is the fairest queen in Scotland,” replied Sir James wisely.

“That is not an answer,” declared Elizabeth. “Which of us two is the fairer?”

“Your Majesty is whiter, but our queen is very winsome.”

“Which is of greater stature?”

“Our queen,” replied Sir James.

“Your queen is over high then,” said Elizabeth, “for I am neither too high nor too low. But tell me, how does she amuse herself?”

140 “She hunts and reads and sometimes she plays on the lute and the virginals.”

“Does she play well?”

“Reasonably well for a queen,” declared Sir James audaciously.

“I wish I could see her,” said Elizabeth.

“If your Grace should command me, I could convey you to Scotland in the dress of a page, and none be the wiser,” suggested Sir James gravely, and Elizabeth did not seem at all displeased with the familiarity.

When the commissioner was again in Scotland, Mary asked what he thought of Elizabeth. “She has neither plain dealing nor upright meaning,” said he, “and she is much afraid that your Highness’s princely qualities will drive her from her kingdom.”

Leicester was refused. Mary was now twenty-three, but she chose for her husband Lord Darnley, a handsome, spoiled child of............
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