to do his utmost for the restoration of English influence, he was compelled from mere motives of personal safety to pretend friendship with his sworn enemy Bothwell, and effectively, if obscurely and indirectly, to aid him in his ambition to win the queen's hand. At first merely tolerated by Mary, because for the time being she deemed it inexpedient to punish him, he was formally reconciled to her before her accouchement, and on 11 July he wrote to Cecil that he was restored to his sovereign's favour, and would do all in his power to maintain the unity between her and Elizabeth (ib. No. 567); but ‘the utmost of his power’ amounted to less than nothing. Any influence he possessed over the queen he had lost for ever; he was simply not to be interfered with, and he knew it, so long as his aims coincided with those of Bothwell and the queen: so long, that is, as he could be utilised for furthering the marriage on which the queen and Bothwell were both equally bent. A necessary preliminary was to get rid of Darnley, and they certainly had in some fashion assurance of Moray's consent to this. That the subject of assassination was directly mooted in Moray's presence at the Craigmillar conference is unlikely; and probably he kept quite clear of the special conspiracy against Darnley. But if he did so it was not to save Darnley but himself; for he must have known that murder was afoot. He was plainly determined not to be made a scapegoat or a martyr, and therefore, instead of either encouraging or discouraging the assassins, he contrived to be at St. Andrews when the assassination occurred. But Bothwell and Mary must have understood that the assassination had his sanction. The tacit bargain—for bargain there was, else Morton and other banished lords would not have been recalled—was apparently that Bothwell was to have a free hand [see Douglas, James, fourth Earl of Morton]. But the stipulation for Morton's recall shows that Moray had further purposes in view, and he no doubt wished to give Bothwell and the queen full facilities for accomplishing their own ruin. Even after the assassination not a word escaped his lips against Bothwell, not a syllable of warning or remonstrance to his sister; but he took care—for his life even was at stake—to obtain license to leave the country and go to France before the marriage took place.
Having thus saved himself from direct contamination with the assassination and the marriage, Moray awaited the developments of a situation which, partly by mere passivity, partly by subtle and indirect suggestion, he had done so much to create. Even when protestants and catholics combined against the queen and Bothwell, he gave no sign. It has been supposed that Morton and others were acting by his advice; but no trace of communications with him has been discovered. He remained in his foreign retreat, and conscientiously abstained from any participation in this second and successful rebellion. He was neither consulted as to the terms of the queen's surrender at Carberry Hill, nor did he give his sanction to her imprisonment in Lochleven. It was only after she had been induced to resign the crown, and to sign on 24 July an act nominating him regent (Reg. P. C. Scotl. i. 539–40), that he consented to return to Scotland. Even then he declined to have anything to do with the regency, until during an interview with the queen at Lochleven he so forcibly impressed on her her own folly and danger that she entreated him to accept the regency as a special act of kindness to herself. When also on 22 Aug. he was formally installed, he professed to consent even at the last with the greatest reluctance, and only did so after special pressure of the lord justice clerk in the name of the queen and king, seconded by the intercession of the assembled lords (Throgmorton to Elizabeth, 23 Aug. 1567, in Illustrations of the Reign of Mary, p. 289). One of his main reasons for this show of reluctance was that he wished to appear in the eyes of Elizabeth as merely the protector and guardian of the queen, who had proved herself unfit to be entrusted with the government; and nothing could have been more pleasing to Elizabeth than such an interpretation of the arrangement.
Once he had accepted the government, Moray undoubtedly displayed great firmness and courage, or, as Throgmorton expressed it, he seemed resolved to imitate ‘rather some who led the people of Israel than any captaine of our age’ (Throgmorton writing about 20 Aug. 1567, ib. p. 282). But at the same time he manifested an unscrupulous adroitness worthy of the worst of the Israelitish kings. While he showed no trace of vindictiveness against his sister, he determined that her return to power should be rendered impossible. Therefore without trial she was declared by the parliament of 15 Dec. to have been herself ‘privie art and part of the actual device and deed of the murder of the king,’ and thus virtually incapacitated from ever again occupying the throne. Further, though himself indirectly involved in the Darnley murder, he did not scruple, in order to silence popular clamour and prevent inconvenient revelations, to do his utmost to secure the conviction and
