sed at this proposal, and
urged him not to go. He seemed determined, and took his leave.
Instead of going to France, however, he only went to Stirling Castle.

Darnley, finding that he could not accomplish his aims by such
methods as these, wrote, it is said, to the Catholic governments of
Europe, proposing that, if they would co-operate in putting him into
power in Scotland, he would adopt efficient measures for changing the
religion of the country from the Protestant to the Catholic faith. He
made, too, every effort to organize a party in his favor in Scotland,
and tried to defeat and counteract the influence of Mary's government
by every means in his power. These things, and other trials and
difficulties connected with them, weighed very heavily upon Mary's
mind. She sunk gradually into a state of great dejection and
despondency. She spent many hours in sighing and in tears, and often
wished that she was in her grave.

So deeply, in fact, was Mary plunged into distress and trouble by the
state of things existing between herself and Darnley, that some of
her officers of government began to conceive of a plan of having her
divorced from him. After looking at this subject in all its bearings,
and consulting about it with each other, they ventured, at last, to
propose it to Mary. She would not listen to any such plan. She did
not think a divorce could be legally accomplished. And then, if it
were to be done, it would, she feared, in some way or other, affect
the position and rights of the darling son who was now to her more
than all the world besides. She would rather endure to the end of her
days the tyranny and torment she experienced from her brutal husband,
than hazard in the least degree the future greatness and glory of the
infant who was lying in his cradle before her, equally unconscious of
the grandeur which awaited him in future years, and of the strength
of the maternal love which was smiling upon him from amid such sorrow
and tears, and extending over him such gentle, but determined and
effectual protection.

The sad and sorrowful feelings which Mary endured were interrupted
for a little time by the splendid pageant of the baptism of the
child. Embassadors came from all the important courts of the
Continent to do honor to the occasion. Elizabeth sent the Earl of
Bedford as her embassador, with a present of a baptismal font of
gold, which had cost a sum equal to five thousand dollars. The
baptism took plac