1566.] THE MURDER OF DARNLEY. 421 were meet for that purpose. I answered and said I had little acquaintance in any shire of England but only Yorkshire, and there were great plenty of Papists. She told me she had written a number of letters to Christo- pher Lascelles with blank superscriptions; and he to direct them to such as he thought meet for that purpose. She told me she had received friendly letters from di- verse, naming Sir Thomas Stanley and one Herbert, and Dacres with the crooked back thus meaning that after she had friended herself in every shire in England with some of the worshipful or of the best countenance of the country, she meant to cause wars to be stirred in Ireland, whereby England might be kept occupied ; then she would have an army in readiness, and herself with her army to enter England and the day that she should enter her title to be read, and she proclaimed Queen. And for the better furniture of this purpose she had before travailed with Spain, with France, and with the Pope for aid ; and had received fair promises with some money from the Pope, and more looked for.' l Such a revelation as this might have satisfied Eliza- beth that it was but waste of labour to attempt any more to return to cordiality and confidence with the Queen of Scots ; yet, either from timidity, or because she would not part with the hope that Mary Stuart might eventually shake off her dreams and qualify herself for the succession by prudence and good sense, she would not submit to the conditions on which Argyle offered to remain her friend. 1 Christopher Bokeby to Cecil, June 1566 : Hatfield MSS. Printed in the Burghley Papers, vol. i.
