REIGN OF ELIZABETH. [CH. 44. believe Elizabeth capable of breaking promises so em- phatically and so repeatedly made to them. They wrote through Randolph that they were still at the Queen of England's devotion. They would hold out as long as their strength lasted ; but it was already tasked to the uttermost, and if left to themselves they would have to yield to superior force. The catastrophe came quicker than they anticipated . The friends of the Congregation were invited by cir- culars to meet at Ayr on the 24th of August. On the 2^th the Queen of Scots after a tempestuous interview vith Randolph, who had demanded Tarn worth's release mounted her horse and rode out of Edinburgh at the head of 5000 men to meet her enemies in the field. Darnley, in gilt armour, was at her side. She herself carried pistols in hand and pistols at her saddlebow. Her one peculiar hope was to encounter and destroy her brother, against whom, above and beyond his poli- tical opposition, she bore an especial and unexplained animosity. 1 1 ' I never heard more outrage- ous words than she spoke against my Lord of Murray. She said she would rather lose her crown than not be revenged upon him. She has some further cause of quarrel with him than she cares to avow.' Ran- dolph to Cecil, August 27: MS. Rolls House. Shortly after, Ran- dolph imagined that he had dis- covered the ' further cause.' ' The batred conceived against my Lord of Murray is neither for his religion nor yet for that she now speaketh that he would take the crown from her, as she said lately to myself but that she knoweth that he knoweth some such secret fact, not to be named for reverence sake, that stand - eth not with her honour, which he so much detesteth, being her brother, that neither can he show himself as he hatli done, nor she think of him but as of one whom she mortally hateth. Here is the mischief, this is the grief; and how this may be
