QUEEN MARY IN SCOTLAND The alliance between Elizabeth and the Protestants marks the end of the Franco-Scottish ,League and the triumph of the Ref ormation in Scotland. An English fleet besieged Leith, and the queen regent, stricken with mortal illness, took refuge in the castle of Edinburgh, where she died in June 156o. There was no one to represent the authority of the Crown, and a Scottish parliament, the legality of the summons of which was doubtful, abolished Roman Catholicism and prohibited under severe penal ties (culminating in capital punishment) the celebration of Mass. The parliament of 156o secured the de facto establish ment of Protestantism, though its legislation was not ratified by the Crown. Mary's husband died in Dec. 156o, and she returned to Scotland in Aug. 1561. At first she was guided by her half brother, whom she made earl of Murray. Any attempt to re store her own religion was out of the question. The utmost that Mary could seriously hope for was a toleration for Roman Catholics, and her efforts to secure this were unsuccessful. She could not even protect the worship of her own attendants in her own chapel, and John Knox afterwards said that on her first ar rival, he could have "executed God's judgments upon her" if he had chosen to do so. England and Protestantism were definitely in the ascendant, and the new Church became stronger than ever when, in 1562, Murray secured Mary's acquiescence in the sup pression of the earl of Huntly, the most powerful Roman Catholic nobleman in Scotland.
Darnley and Rizzio.—A marriage with a foreign prince might have strengthened Mary in Scotland, but she was restrained from this course by her position as heiress-presumptive to the Eng lish Crown. Nine years younger than Elizabeth, Mary judged that she would outlive her, and the main aim of her policy was to secure a recognition of her claim to the succession in the event of Elizabeth dying without issue. Elizabeth threatened that if Mary made a marriage with a foreign prince, steps would be taken to debar her succession to the English Crown, and, for some years, she amused herself with insincere suggestions for the Scottish queen's marriage. In July 1565, Mary married her
cousin, Henry, Lord Darnley, who, as the representative of their grandmother, Margaret Tudor, by her second marriage (with the earl of Angus), stood next to Mary herself in the suc cession to the English throne. He was also next to the Hamiltons in the succession to the Scottish throne. Elizabeth had allowed Darnley (who had been brought up in England) to go to Scot land, and the marriage was in no way antagonistic to English in terests; but she declared herself offended and secretly sent aid to Murray, who raised a rebellion against the marriage. Her people supported Mary, and Murray fled to England. Darnley proved an impossible husband, and his foolish ambition sought a somewhat mysterious right known as the Crown Matrimonial, which would have secured the throne to him for life and might even have given his children by a second wife precedence over the Hamiltons in the succession to the throne. He had made many enemies, and no friends, in Scotland, and Mary's Italian secre tary, David Rizzio, was known to have advised Mary to refuse her husband's request. Darnley became involved in a plot for the murder of Rizzio. The murder was only a small part of the design of the conspirators, who included Murray and the other exiles in England and their friends in Scotland. Darnley was led to believe that his accomplices would give him the authority of a king regnant. Rizzio was murdered on the evening of March 9, 1566, and, the same night, Murray arrived from England, where Elizabeth had been cognizant of the plot. Then Mary, in an in terview with her husband, persuaded him that he was the dupe of his accomplices, and, on the night of March I1, husband and wife escaped from Holyrood, and fled to Dunbar. Public opinion again supported Mary, and, while Murray remained in Scotland, the nobles who had taken part in the Rizzio murder had to flee to England. Darnley disavowed any knowledge of the plot, and bitterly opposed any suggestion of pardon for his fellow-con spirators, who supplied Mary with full evidence of his guilt.