more
unprecedented, and scarcely more humiliating, than that in which Murray
was placed by her appeal to Elizabeth. Acting on behalf of the infant
king his nephew, he saw himself called upon to submit to the tribunal of
a foreign sovereign such proofs of the atrocious guilt of the queen his
sister; as should justify in the eyes of this sovereign, and in those of
Europe, the degradation of Mary from the exalted station which she was
born to fill, her imprisonment, her violent expulsion from the kingdom,
and her future banishment or captivity for life:--an attempt in which,
though successful, there was both disgrace to himself and detriment to
the honor and independence of his country; and from which, if
unsuccessful, he could contemplate nothing but certain ruin. Struck with
all the evils of this dilemma; with the danger of provoking beyond
forgiveness his own queen, whose restoration he still regarded as no
improbable event, and with the imprudence of relying implicitly on the
dubious protection of Elizabeth, Murray long hesitated to bring forward
the only charge dreaded by the illustrious prisoner,--that of having
conspired with Bothwell the murder of her husband.

In the mean time Maitland, a Scottish commissioner secretly attached to
Mary, found means to open a private communication with the duke of
Norfolk, and to suggest to this nobleman, now a widower for the third
time, the project of obtaining for himself the hand of Mary, and of
replacing her by force on the throne of her ancestors. The vanity of
Norfolk, artfully worked upon by the bishop of Ross, Mary's prime
agent, caused him to listen with complacency to this rash proposal; and
having once consented to entertain it, he naturally became earnest to
prevent Murray from preferring that heinous accusation which he had at
length apprized the English commissioners that he was provided with
ample means of substantiating. After some deliberation on the means of
effecting this object, he accordingly resolved upon the step of
discovering his views to the regent himself, and endeavouring to obtain
his concurrence. Murray, who seems to have felt little confidence in the
stability of the government of which he was the present head, and who
judged perhaps that the return of the queen as the wife of an English
protestant nobleman would afford the best prospect of safety to himself
and his party, readily acceded to the proposal, and consented still to
withhold the "damning