and trusted! Perhaps she encouraged, if she did not
originally devise, this matrimonial project purely as a romantic trial
of his attachment to herself, and pleased her fancy with the idea of his
rejecting for her a younger and a fairer queen;--perhaps she entertained
a transient thought of making him her own husband, and wished previously
to give him consequence by this proposal;--perhaps she meant nothing
more than to perplex Mary by a variety of suitors, and thus delay her
marriage; an event which she could not anticipate without vexation.

That she was not sincere in her recommendation of Leicester is certain
from the circumstance, that when the queen of Scots, appearing to
incline to a speedy conclusion of the business, pressed to know on what
conditions Elizabeth would give her approbation to the union, the
earnestness in the cause which she had before displayed immediately
abated.

Her conduct with respect to Darnley is equally involved in perplexity
and double-dealing. Melvil, as we have seen, asserts that it was
Elizabeth herself who first mentioned him as a suitable match for the
queen of Scots: and if his relation be correct, which his partiality
towards his own sovereign makes indeed somewhat doubtful, the English
princess must have been well aware, when she conversed with him, of the
favor with which the addresses of this young nobleman were likely to be
received, though the envoy says that he forbore openly to express the
sentiments of his court on this topic. It was after Melvil's departure
that Elizabeth, not indeed without reluctance and hesitation, permitted
Darnley to accompany the earl his father into Scotland, ostensibly for
the purpose of witnessing the reversal of the attainder formerly passed
against him, and his solemn restoration in blood; but really, as she
must well have known, with the object of pushing his suit with the
queen.

Mary no sooner beheld the handsome youth than she was seized with a
passion for him, which she determined to gratify: but apprehensive, with
reason, of the interference of Elizabeth, she disguised for the present
her inclinations, and engaged with a feigned earnestness in negotiations
preparatory to an union with Leicester. Meanwhile she was secretly
soliciting at Rome the necessary dispensation for marrying within the
prohibited degrees of the church; and it was not till the arrival of
this instrument was speedily expected, and all her other preparations
were com