Moray must sleep very uneasily these nights.

Hope was high in Bolton Castle during those lovely summer days, and Mary’s health and spirits were at their peak. She was gracious and friendly to familiarity with all who served her. Her guards were susceptible to her charm, and Bolton Castle during those weeks could not have been less like a prison.

Then to crown her pleasure Lord Herries arrived back from London.

Mary embraced him when he came to her apartments. He was decidedly pleased and she guessed that he brought good news.

“You have seen the Queen?” she asked eagerly.

“Yes, Your Majesty, and talked long with her.”

“And what news do you bring?”

“That if Your Majesty will commit your cause to be heard by her order, not as your judge, but as your dear cousin and friend, and to commit yourself to her advice and counsel, she will see that you are once more set upon your regal seat.”

Mary clasped her hands with pleasure.

“It seems that she is aware of our relationship, and is indeed my friend. What plans does she set forth in this matter?”

“She will send for certain of your enemies and, before noblemen of England—who shall be chosen with your approval—they shall explain why they have deposed you. If they can give some reason for this, she will reinstate you, but there will be a condition that they are not deprived of their estates. If on the other hand they should not be able to give a reason, she promises to restore you by force of arms if they should resist.”

“But this is the best news I have heard since I left Scotland.”

“There is one other condition. If she helps you to regain the throne of Scotland, you must renounce any claim to the throne of England during her lifetime or that of any issue she may have.”

“I never wished to claim the throne of England,” said Mary. “It is true the title ‘Queen of England’ was bestowed on me in France, but that was not my wish.”

“There is something else. You must break your league with France and enter into league with England; you must abandon the Mass in Scotland and receive the Common Prayer after the manner of England.”

Mary was silent. “I am not anxious to interfere with the religion of my people.”

Herries said: “It seems that at last the Queen of England is ready to help you. It would be possible to receive the Common Prayer and allow those who wished to celebrate Mass privately to do so.”

Mary still hesitated.

“She could put Your Majesty on your throne more easily than any other. She could doubtless do it without bloodshed. Moray would never dare stand against the English. The French have to come from overseas and it is not easy to make a landing in a foreign country. But the English are on our Border. Moray would never dare risk a war with England and a civil war at the same time. He would be crushed between two strong forces and could do nothing to help himself.”

“I have always believed in negotiation around the council table rather than battle. But . . . George Douglas is raising men for me in France. He already has a force of a thousand armed men in training. That is but a beginning, I am assured. And you say the Queen of England declares that I must not accept help from France.”

Herries assured her that this was so. He had been deceived by the Queen of England who was one of the wiliest rulers of her day. She had made it her business to know a great deal about Herries. He was one of the most loyal of Mary’s adherents. Elizabeth knew that, because Leicester had sought to win him to Moray’s cause, while he was in London, with promises of great honors to come, and Herries had not even treated Leicester’s overtures seriously. A sentimental man, thought the Queen of England; she admired him for his loyalty and wished that he were a subject of hers. At the same time she knew how best to deal with such a man. So, when he had been brought to her, he had met a woman, completely feminine, deeply sympathetic to her dear cousin of Scotland, a little emotional and anxious to do what was right. She fervently hoped, she had told him, that the Queen of Scotland’s innocence would be established; she wished more than anything to receive her dear sister and cousin, to comfort her, to talk with her in private. But her ministers were in some way her masters. They were jealous of her reputation. They insisted that Mary’s innocence must be proved before she was received by their Queen.

Herries was as completely duped as she had intended him to be, so now he told Mary: “The Queen of England sincerely hopes to prove your innocence. She has assured me that she is on your side.”

“Yet,” said Mary, “I am a Queen even as she is, and it is not for her to sit in judgment over me.”

“She does not wish to. She only wishes to show her ministers that these evil rumors which have been circulating about you are without foundation.”

“Tell me how you were received by her. I would hear everything.”

So Herries told of how he had waited for an audience—waited and waited—and later realized that it was her ministers who had made it impossible for him to see her. But when he did so, she had convinced him of her love for the Queen of Scots. “She is my kinswoman, my lord,” she had said. “And do you think that I, a Queen, wish to see another Queen treated so disrespectfully by her subjects? Nay, I wish to restore to her all that he has lost; and I swear that once her innocence is proved, no matter what any man say, she will find me her firm friend.”

Mary smiled. She was picturing that meeting. Her cousin whom she had never seen, but who she knew was red haired, occasionally arrogant, sometimes gay, at times frivolous, loving to dance and be flattered, holding her little court of favorites to whom she liked to give the impression that they could become her lovers, seemed a very human person.

Mary endowed Elizabeth with the more pleasing characteristics which were her own—generosity, impetuosity, eagerness to help those in distress.

Thus she made one of the most ruinous mistakes of her life when she said: “I will write to George and tell him to disband his men; I will tell Argyle, Huntley and Fleming the same. I will put my trust in Elizabeth and do as she suggests.”

NO SOONER HAD MARY agreed to fall in with Elizabeth’s wishes than misgivings beset her.

She heard of George Douglas’s bitter disappointment whet he was forced to disperse his little army. Argyle, Huntley and Fleming were shocked beyond expression, but there was nothing they could do since the Queen ordered them to disband their forces. In the decision of a moment Mary had destroyed all that her friends had been carefully building up since the defeat at Langside. She was no match for her wily enemies.

She had written to Elizabeth telling her that as she had given her consent to the plan, she believed she should have Elizabeth’s own agreement in writing. She was sure the Queen would instruct Secretary Cecil to write to her confirming the offer which Herries had delivered orally.

Each day she waited for the Queen’s reply; but none came; yet she heard that Moray and Morton were preparing the case against her, and that it was accepted that she had agreed to have her case tried in England.

Sometimes she cried out in anger: “Who are these people to judge me? I will answer to one judge only and that judge is God, before whom I shall not be afraid to stand and declare my innocence.”

But it was too late to protest. Copies of the casket letters had already been translated, and Moray and Morton, in collusion with Cecil and his friends, were building the case against her.

Her friends in Scotland deplored this state of affairs. There was a little brightness in the immediate future however. Although she never went out unless accompanied by guards, and although the castle gates were carefully locked at night, Scotsmen were still allowed to come and go; and this meant that news could be brought to her from the world outside Bolton Castle.

While Herries walked with Mary in the grounds one day he said: “I think we have been too trusting.”

Mary nodded. “No word from Elizabeth. Do you think her ministers are preventing her from putting in writing what she told you?”

Herries was thoughtful. It was difficult to imagine the woman he had seen, taking orders from her ministers. She had appeared to him in the role of compassionate friend of his mistress, but he could not forget the demeanor of her courtiers, the docile manner in which they—and her foremost ministers—never failed to speak to her, as though she were a goddess. Could such a woman be waiting on the word of ministers who were so clearly preoccupied in discovering new ways of flattering her and winning her approval? Herries had begun to wonder whether he had been duped by the English Queen.

In any case while Mary was in England she was to a great extent at the mercy of Elizabeth; and knowing that ten thousand Scotsmen had rallied to Huntley’s banner, and that Frenchmen had been ready to come to her defense, he had been considering that if Mary were in Scotland she might have a better chance of bargaining with Elizabeth.

That was why he was thoughtful now. A scheme had been put before him. It was simple as he believed all good schemes should be. What could have been more simple than the escape from Lochleven? It could work.

“Your Majesty,” he said, “I and others of your friends begin to think that we could more likely win Elizabeth’s help if you were not her prisoner. And let us face it—although she calls you her guest, you are in fact her prisoner.”

“You mean, if I were back in Scotland it would be easier to bargain with her.”