368 REIGN OF ELIZABETH. [CH. 44. Woe is me for you when David's (Rizzio's") son shall be a king of England/ l j^66 At length a darker secret stole abroad, that January. p iug the Fiftllj wllQ had j ust succee ded to the Papal chair, had drawn away Catherine de Medici from the freer and nobler part of the French people ; that she had entered on the dark course which found its
outcome on the day of St Bartholomew ; and that a secret league had been formed between the Pope and the King of France and the Guises for the uprooting of the reformed faith out of France by fair means or foul. Nor was the conspiracy confined to the Continent ; a copy of the bond had been sent across to Scotland, which Randolph ascertained that Mary Stuart had signed. 2 At the moment when it arrived she had been moved in some slight degree by Melville's persuasions, and perhaps, finding that Philip also advised modera- tion, she was hesitating whether she should not pardon the lords after all. But the Queen-mother's messenger, M. de Yillemont, entreated that she would under no circumstances whatever permit men to return to Scot- land who had so long thwarted and obstructed her. The jun^xpectftrl siippm^^ftm-Jgra.rip.e blew her passion into flame again ; 3 and she looked only to the meeting of the Parliament, from which the strength of the Protestants would now be absent, not only to gratify her own and Rizzio's revenge but to commence her larger 1 Randolph to Leicester, January 29 : Scotch MSS. Rolls House. 2 Randolph to Cecil, February 7 : Ibid. 3 MELVILLE'S Memoirs.
