ions, and to encourage no reports of your mistress which would
misbecome a queen and her kinswoman. I would also say, by her leave,
that I am a queen as well as she, and not altogether friendless: and,
perhaps, I have as great a soul too; so that methinks we should be upon
a level in our treatment of each other. As soon as I have consulted the
states of my kingdom, I shall be ready to give her a seasonable answer;
and I am the more intent on my journey, in order to make the quicker
despatch in this affair. But she, it seems, intends to stop my journey;
so that either she will not let me give her satisfaction, or is resolved
not to be satisfied; perhaps on purpose to keep up the disagreement
between us. She has often reproached me with my being young; and I must
be very young indeed, and as ill advised, to treat of matters of such
great concern and importance without the advice of my parliament. I have
not been wanting in all friendly offices to her; but she disbelieves or
overlooks them. I could heartily wish that I were as nearly allied to
her in affection as in blood; for that indeed would be a most valuable
alliance."[*]

* Caballa, p. 374. Spotswood, p. 177.

Such a spirited reply, notwithstanding the obliging terms interspersed
in it, was but ill fitted to conciliate friendship between these rival
princesses, or cure those mutual jealousies which had already taken
place. Elizabeth equipped a fleet on pretence of pursuing pirates, but
probably with an intention of intercepting the queen of Scots in her
return homewards. Mary embarked at Calais; and passing the English fleet
in a fog, arrived safely at Leith, attended by her three uncles, the
duke of Aumale, the grand prior, and the marquis of Elbeuf, together
with the marquis of Damville and other French courtiers. This change of
abode and situation was very little agreeable to that princess. Besides
her natural prepossessions in favor of a country in which she had been
educated from her earliest infancy, and where she had borne so high a
rank, she could not forbear both regretting the society of that
people, so celebrated for their humane disposition and their respectful
attachment to their sovereign, and reflecting on the disparity of the
scene which lay before her. It is said, that after she was embarked at
Calais, she kept her eyes fixed on the coast of France, and never turned
them from that beloved object till darkness fell, and intercepted it
from her v