248 REIGN OF ELIZABETH. [CH. 43. not to marrv^ the succession must remainunsettled. The Queen of Scots ( wept her fill ; ' but tears in those eves were no sign of happy promise. Randolph so little liked the atmosphere that he petitioned for his own recall. Lennox had gathered about him a knot of wild and desperate youths Cassilis, Eglinton, Montgomery, and Bothwell the worst and fiercest of all. Darnley had found a second friend and adviser besides Rizzio in Lord Robert Stuart, the Queen's half-brother, ' a man full of all evil/ The Queen's own marriage with him was now generally spoken of; and Chatelherault, Argyle, and Murray gave the English ambassador notice that mischief was in the wind, ' and joined themselves in a new bond to defend each other's quarrels.' 1 ' To help all these unhappy ones,' Randolph wrote to Cecil, ' I doubt not but you will take the best way ; and this I can assure you, that contrary to my sovereign's will, let them attempt, let them seek, let them send to all the cardinals and devils in hell, it shall exceed their power to bring anything to pass, so that be not refused the Queen of Scots which in reason ought to content her.' 2 The elements of uncertainty and danger were already too many, when it pleased Elizabeth to introduce another which completed the chaos and shook the three king-
- -, doms. Despising doctrinal Protestantism too keenly to
do justice to its professors, Elizabeth had been long growing impatient of excesses like that which had 1 Randolph to Cecil, March 20 : Cotton. 3LSS. <"ALIG. B. 10. 2 Ibid.
