e; for since the production of the
great charge against her, to which she had instructed her commissioners
to decline making any answer, Elizabeth had regarded her as one who had
suffered judgement to go against her by default, and began to treat her
accordingly. Her confinement was rendered more rigorous, and henceforth
the still pending negotiations respecting her return to her own country
were carried on with a slackness which evidently proceeded from the
dread of Mary, and the reluctance of Elizabeth, to bring to a decided
determination a business which could not now be ended either with credit
or advantage to the deposed queen.

Elizabeth had dismissed the regent to his government without open
approbation of his conduct as without censure; but he had received from
her in private an important supply of money, and such other effectual
aids as not only served to establish the present preponderance of his
authority, but would enable him, it was thought, successfully to
withstand all future attempts for the restoration of Mary. Evidently
then it was only by the raising of a formidable party in the English
court that any thing could be effected in behalf of the royal captive;
but her agents and those of the duke assured themselves that ample means
were in their hands for setting this machine in action.

Elizabeth, it was now thought, would not marry: the queen of Scots was
generally admitted to be her legal heir; and it appeared highly
important to the welfare of England that she should not transfer her
claims, with her hand, to any of the more powerful princes of Europe;
consequently the duke entertained little doubt of uniting in favor of
his suit the suffrages of all those leading characters in the English
court who had formerly conveyed to Mary assurances of their attachment
to her title and interests. His own influence amongst the nobility was
very considerable, and he readily obtained the concurrence of the earl
of Pembroke, the earl of Arundel (his first wife's father), and lord
Lumley (a catholic peer closely connected with the house of Howard). The
design was now imparted to Leicester, who entered into it with an
ostentation of affectionate zeal which ought perhaps to have alarmed the
too credulous duke. As if impatient to give an undeniable pledge of his
sincerity, he undertook to draw up with his own hand a letter to the
queen of Scots, warmly recommending the duke to her matrimonial choice,
which immediately