her safe keeping; and
though the interference of the French and Spanish ambassadors had
obliged her to suspend its execution, there is no reason to suppose that
the design was relinquished, when this unexpected stroke rendered it for
ever impracticable. The regency of Scotland, too, was now to be
contested by the enraged factions of that distracted country, and it was
of great importance to Elizabeth that the victory should fall to the
party of the young king; yet such were the perplexities of her political
situation, that it was some time before she could satisfy herself that
there would not be too great a hazard in supporting by arms the
election of the earl of Lenox, to whom she gave her interest.

Her first recourse was to her favorite arts of intrigue; and she sent
Randolph, her chosen instrument for these occasions, to tamper with
various party-leaders, while Sussex, whose character inclined him more
to measures of coercion, exhorted her to put an end to her irresolution
and throw the sword into the scale of Lenox. She at length found reason
to adopt this counsel; and the earl, re-entering Scotland with his army,
laid waste the lands and took or destroyed the castles of Mary's
adherents.

Sir William Drury, marshal of the army, was afterwards sent further into
the country to chastize the Hamiltons, of which clan was the assassin of
Murray.

The contemporary accounts of this expedition, amid many lamentable
particulars of ravages committed, afford one amusing trait of manners.
Lord Fleming, who held out Dumbarton castle for the queen of Scots, had
demanded a parley with sir William Drury, during which he treacherously
caused him to be fired upon; happily without effect. Sir George Cary,
burning to avenge the injury offered to his commander, sent immediately
a letter of defiance to lord Fleming, challenging him to meet him in
single combat on this quarrel, when, where and how he dares; concluding
thus: "Otherwise I will baffle your good name, sound with the trumpet
your dishonor, and paint your picture with the heels upward and bear it
in despite of yourself." That this was not the only species of affront
to which portraits were in these days exposed, we learn from an
expression of Ben Jonson's:--"Take as unpardonable offence as if he had
torn your mistress's colors, or _breathed on her picture_[71]."

[Note 71: See "Every Man out of his Humour."]

The Scotch war was terminated a few months after, by an agreeme