314 REIGN OF ELIZABETH. [CH. 65. own misdoings, her plots at her first return from France, her hatred of the Earl of Murray, her intrigues with the disaffected English Catholics, her husband's death, her marriage with the murderer, the rebellion in the North which followed her flight into England, her cor- respondence with the Duke of Norfolk, her transactions with the Bishop of Ross and Ridolfi, and again with a ciphered letter that had been intercepted, in which she had described the English nobility as being ready to take arms in her behalf, in which she had invoked the Catholic powers to maintain and revenge her cause, in which she had described Elizabeth as a tyrant, faithless antichrist, usurper of titles, maintainer of rebels, and enemy of all good princes, for the cutting off of whom she had a way made by her Holy Father, both for their and her relief. 1 Opposed to all this, there were on the side of Eliza- beth acts of kindness which it pleased her to forget. While she was in France, proposals had been made to her Majesty by Maitland of Lethington to deprive her of her kingdom, ' which we utterly rejected.' When she was in Lochleven, the Lords had determined to take her life : ' the same was stayed by our mediation, not without difficulty.' ' When the noblemen repaired to England, furnished with sufficient matter to justify their proceedings against her, her Majesty herself was the only impediment and stay, that there was no further proceeding in that matter ; ' ' for that we saw (by the 1 ' Out of a letter written in cipher by her to the Bishop of Ross, April 30, 1578.' Note on the margin of Mr Beale's instructions.
