290 REIGN' OF ELIZABETH. [CH. 65. The sentiment of all this was as little likely- December. to have touched Elizabeth as to have been meant in earnest by La Mothe ; but the presence of the Queen of Scots in the realm was a fact which did not allow itself to be forgotten, and the question of what to do with her was as necessary to solve, as it was still far from solution. The Queen had all along preferred the mother to the son, and if France would become a gua- rantee for Mary Stuart's future behaviour, La Mothe's proposal had, after all, much to recommend it. Con- nected with the restoration of Mary Stuart, he had brought plans for a general policy in Europe, a close alliance between France and England, the liberation of the Low Countries, the toleration of the Huguenots, and the fine picture so often shaped by imagination, to fade as soon as it had been drawn of a world restored to order and peace on broad principles of moderation and justice. Was France sincere ? all turned on that, or was the French Court France ? and might not La Mothe be after all an agent of the Guises ? Sir Henry Cobham discovered that among La Mothe's secret instructions there was one to keep Lennox in Scotland, another to arrange a marriage between James and a daughter of Lorraine. 1 He had been also ordered to encourage Mary Stuart's plans for the associate sovereignty of her- self and James ; to prevail on the Estates of Scotland to declare the Lochleven abdication null, and to obtain, if 1 Cobham to Walsingham, November 19. Cipber. "Walsingham to Cobbam, January 4 : MSS. France
