is
quite legitimate, and is meant for the right address. But the word
which the queen uses, marriage, is employed in the sense of a wedding
ring, as they say alliance or union, to this day, in the same
meaning. She is regretting that she must wear the ring round her neck,
and cannot produce it in public, because of Darnley.

Besides the one which is spurious and the four which are genuine,
there are three other letters which we do not know in the original
French. They cannot be tested in the same manner as those I have just
spoken of, and cannot be accepted with the same confidence. If, then,
we divide the letters in this way: one evidently forged, four
evidently genuine, and three that are best left aside, the result is
that there is no evidence of murderous intent. But it would appear
that Mary wished to be carried off by Bothwell, and that she meant to
marry him. How she proposed to dispose of her living husband, whether
by death or by his consent to divorce, we cannot tell. The case is
highly suspicious and compromising; but more than that is required for
a verdict of guilty in a matter of life and death.

What is known as the Penal Laws begins with Mary's captivity in
England. There was the northern rising; the Pope issued a Bull
deposing Elizabeth, and Philip undertook to make away with her; for
the Queen of Scots, once Queen of France, now fixed her hopes on Spain
and the forces of the Counter-Reformation. The era of persecution
began which threw England back for generations, while France, Germany,
Austria, the Netherlands were striving for religious freedom. It was
proposed to extirpate the Catholics. Negotiations were opened with
the Scots to give them back their queen, on condition that they would
at once put her to death. And when she had been condemned for
plotting treason, Elizabeth asked her gaoler to murder her in her
prison. The execution at Fotheringay gave Elizabeth that security at
home which she could never have enjoyed while Mary lived. But it was
the signal of danger from abroad. Philip II was already preparing for
war with England when Mary bequeathed her rights to him. The legal
force of the instrument was not great, but it gave him a claim to
fight for, constituting the greatest enterprise of the Reformation
struggle. Sixtus V, the ablest of the modern Popes, encouraged him.
Personally, he much preferred Elizabeth to Philip, and he offered her
favourable terms. But he gave hi