Elizabeth's dilemma
From Carlisle Mary sent Elizabeth another message asking for a meeting at which she could explain her conduct. Elizabeth, who on the whole disliked the idea of supporting a rebellion against a lawful ruler, was inclined to invite her, but her council forbade it. The councillors argued that if Mary were allowed to go to France, the French might send an army to Scotland to restore her, bring the country back to Catholicism, make it their ally, and turn it into a threat at England's back. If she stayed in England, her presence would be a reason for Catholic revolt in a country whose people were mostly Catholic at heart. And if England forced the Scottish nobles to put Mary back on her throne, their lives would be in danger and England would lose its Protestant allies. Cecil probably agreed with Hallam (the name is garbled in the Persian text and this is our guess) that holding Mary by force violated the natural, public and civil law, but he felt that his first duty was to protect England.
Since one task of diplomacy is to clothe facts in moral principle, Mary was told that before her request to see Elizabeth could be granted she must appear before a tribunal and clear herself of the various charges. She answered that as a queen she could not be tried by a lay commission, least of all one belonging to a foreign country, and asked leave to return to Scotland or go to France. She also asked to meet Morton and Lethington in the queen's presence in order to prove their guilt in Darnley's death. The English council ordered her moved from Carlisle, which was too near the border, to Bolton Castle near York (13 July 1568). Mary agreed to be held there without harsh treatment, relying on Elizabeth's promise: put yourself in my hands without argument; I will listen to nothing said against you; your honor will be kept and you will have your crown. Thus tamed, she agreed to send representatives to the inquiry. To please Elizabeth she even pretended to accept the Anglican rite, while assuring Philip of Spain that she would never abandon the Catholic cause. From this time on, Mary and Elizabeth vied with each other in hypocrisy and double dealing, each making excuses to the other: one as a queen who had been betrayed, the other as a queen whose position was in danger.
The inquiry at York and Westminster
The commission met at York on 4 October 1568. For Mary seven men attended, the chief of them John Leslie, the Catholic bishop of Ross, and Lord Herries from western Scotland. Elizabeth named three Protestants to sit: the Duke of Norfolk, the Earl of Sussex and Sir Ralph Sadler. The Earl of Moray, Morton and Lethington also appeared, and privately showed the English members the casket letters. They said that if Mary would recognize Moray as regent and agree to live in England on a generous pension, they would not publish the letters. Norfolk, who was thinking of marrying Mary and hoped to sit on the English throne after Elizabeth's death, rejected the offer, and Sussex wrote to Elizabeth that Mary could hardly defend herself.
Elizabeth then ordered the hearing moved to Westminster. There the Earl of Moray laid the casket letters before the council. Opinions about their authenticity differed, but Elizabeth declared that until Mary's authorship was denied she could not receive her. When Mary asked to be shown the originals or copies, the commissioners refused, and she never saw them. The commission broke up without a decision (11 January 1569). Moray first saw Elizabeth and then went back to Scotland with the letters. Mary, angry and suspicious, was taken to a safer place at Tutbury on the River Trent. When foreign governments protested, Elizabeth answered that if they saw the evidence shown to the commissioners they would not find England's treatment of Mary harsh. The Spanish ambassador urged Philip to invade England, promising that the Catholics of the north would join. But Philip distrusted such help, and Alba warned him that if England were invaded or stirred to revolt, Elizabeth would at once put Mary to death.
The Northern Rising
A revolt came nonetheless. On 14 November 1569 the Earl of Northumberland and the Earl of Westmorland rode to Durham with an army of 5,700 men, drove out the clergy who were to give communion by the Anglican rite, burned the Book of Common Prayer, restored the Catholic altar and attended Mass. They even meant to attack Tutbury to free Mary, but Elizabeth foiled the plan by moving Mary to Coventry (23 November 1569).
The Earl of Sussex, with an army made up largely of Catholics, quickly put the rising down. Elizabeth ordered that the rebels and their followers be punished severely, and about six hundred were put to death, their property passing to the queen (we leave out the grim details the book gives of the order). Northumberland and Westmorland fled to Scotland. In February 1570 Leonard Dacres led another Catholic revolt, but he too was beaten and fled across the border.
The death of John Knox
In January 1570 Knox wrote to Cecil advising him to do away with Mary without delay: if you do not cut the root, the branches that seem broken will sprout again. By then he had written his History of the Reformation of Religion within the Realm of Scotland, a book that made no claim to be neutral and was a vivid and vital, though skewed, story. Its style is strange and striking and full of idiom, and the work of a plain-spoken, fiery preacher shows on every page.
John Knox was a harsh but great man. He wanted a stronger church order than even Calvin did, he hated his enemies from the heart, he fought bravely, he had an iron will, and he spent the last ember of that incredible will. By 1572 he was worn out and could not walk without help, yet each Sunday he climbed into the pulpit of St. Giles. On 9 November 1572 he preached for the last time, and the whole congregation walked with him to his house. Fifteen days later, at sixty-seven, he died, as poor as he was born, having made no profit from the word of God. He had invited posterity to judge him: though this ungrateful age does not know my worth, the ages to come will bear witness to the service I have done my country. Few men have sunk so deep into a people's beliefs, and few of his contemporaries held as he did to education, zeal and self-government. Mary and John Knox had divided Scotland between them: Mary stood for the Renaissance and Knox for the Reformation. But Mary lost the contest because she could not, as Elizabeth did, combine the Renaissance and the Reformation.
The Ridolfi plot and Norfolk
Mary, like a restless leopard shut in a cage, examined every corner and every chance of escape. In March 1571 (the Persian text prints 1517, plainly a slip) Roberto Ridolfi, a Florentine banker living in London (his name is garbled in the text, and we give it as it is known), set up a line of contact among Mary, the Spanish ambassador, the bishop of Ross, Alba, Philip and Pope Pius V. He proposed that Alba invade England from the Netherlands with a Spanish army, that Catholics rise at the same time and march from Scotland, that Elizabeth be deposed, and that Mary take the throne as queen of England and Scotland and marry Norfolk. Norfolk, once he knew of it, did not fully agree and did not reveal it. Mary accepted it as an experiment. The pope placed money at Ridolfi's disposal and promised to win Philip over. Philip made his agreement depend on Alba's, and Alba judged the plan fanciful and absurd. All it brought was disaster for Mary's friends, since the letters of Ridolfi and Norfolk were found in the hands of the servants of Mary and the duke, and Norfolk, Ross and several Catholic nobles were imprisoned.
Norfolk was tried for treason (the book says he was acquitted, though other accounts record that his peers found him guilty; we flag this and leave the text). Although Elizabeth hesitated to sign the death warrant of so eminent a man, Cecil, the English parliament and the Anglican clergy demanded the execution of Norfolk and of Mary. Elizabeth agreed to their demand and ordered Norfolk beheaded (2 June 1572). When news of the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre reached England, some again demanded Mary's death, but Elizabeth still would not consent.
Nineteen years of captivity
Only by thinking of Mary's imprisonment of nearly nineteen years can we grasp her despair and the cruelty she felt had been done to her. The English government kept moving her from place to place so that her supporters in one district, or her guards, could not hatch new plots. Her conditions of confinement, however, were humane: she was allowed to receive her annual pension of 1,200 pounds (the book's figure), sent from France, and the English government gave a fairly large sum for her food, medical care, servants and entertainment. She was even allowed to attend Mass and other Catholic observances. She passed the long hours with embroidery, gardening and her tame dogs. But as her hope of freedom faded, she cared less for her appearance and took less exercise, and her health suffered. She was troubled by pain in her joints, and at times her legs swelled so that she could not walk. By 1577, when she was not yet thirty-five, her hair had turned white, and afterward she had to wear a wig.