234 REIGN OF ELIZABETH. [011.43. favourite of Mary. Like Chatelar, lie was an accom- plished musician ; he soothed her hours of solitude with love songs, and he had the graceful tastes with which she delighted to amuse her leisure. He had glided gradually into her more serious confidence, as she dis- covered that he had the genius of his countrymen for intrigue, and that his hatred for the Reformers rivalled her own in its intensity. The adroit diplomacy of statesmen found less favour in Mary's cabinet than the envenomed weapons of deliberate fraud. Rhe_shook off the^control of the one supremely able minister that she possessed, and shejwent_on with renewejjjpnjt, disembarrassed of a companion whojvas too honourable for her present schemes. To the change of counsellors may be attributed her sudden advance in the arts of intrigue. On a sudden, none knew why she professed a readiness to yield to Elizabeth's wishes.
- Her mind to the Lord Robert/ she said to Randolpli
at the end of January, ( was as it ought to be to so noble a gentleman ; ' ' such a one as his mistress would marry were he not her subject ought to content her ; ' ' what she would do should depend on the Queen of England, who should wholly guide her and rule her.' * She deceived Maitland as she deceived Randolph, and Maitland wrote warmly to Cecil, full of hopes 'that the great work at which they had so long laboured together, the union of the two countries, would be accomplished at last to their perpetual hon- Randolph to Cecil, February 5 : Scotch MSS. Rolls House.
