584 REIGN OF ELIZABETH. [CH. 67. promote the pretensions of any other claimant of the crown. They also suggested further, that Scots and English should become mutual/ naturalized citizens of either country. Some difference of opinion followed. Elizabeth desired to reserve a power to herself, ' upon unkind usage which she hoped would not fall out towards her, to take such order for the succession as to herself and the Parliament should seem meet.' 1 The treaty however would probably have been arranged satis- factorily to the parties concerned. The Queen of Scots' friends had abandoned all hope of preventing it by peaceable means, and the negotiation was left to those who were determined to carry it through. Other ways not peaceable however were still open to them. There were still the traditional Border enmities, which could at any moment be blown into a flame. The fortunes of the Earl of Arran depended on the preven- tion of an arrangement which would lead to the return of the Douglases and the Hamiltons ; and the manage- ment of the treaty with England having passed out of his hands, he had placed himself at the disposition of the Duke of Guise. To the conspirators at Paris it was all-important to prevent the completion of the alliance, and heavy boxes of bullion were sent over for Arran, to use at his discretion in breaking up the English party. A raid of cattle thieves out of Northumberland, on a larger scale than usual, gave him the opportunity for which he was watching. 1 Articles of the treaty sent from Scotland, with considerations by her Majesty, July : MSS. Scotland.
