Stuart dynasty

128 The Stuart Dynasty.
Catholic League of 1577 sprang into being, as a set-off
against the tolerant tactics of Henry III. when dealing with
the Huguenots, Queen Mary was believed to be an active
party to the compact framed by her uncles, the Duke of
Guise and the Cardinal of Lorraine, and suffered accordingly
in her English imprisonment, which became more and more
rigorous.
The frequent internal conspiracies against the Government
of Elizabeth gave a political pretext to justify this severity,
while at length th* clouds gathering over England betokened
that force would decide the question at issue between the two
branches of the Christian Church represented by Spain and
Englan :.
The destruction of Mary Stuart has been truthfully repre-
sented as a natural outcome of this struggle, but her deten-
tion by Cecil and Elizabet' , after the letters were discredited
at W< s' minster, remains without moral or legal justification.
One of the strongest pieces of evidence in her favour consists
in the fact that her mother-in-law, Lady Lennox, who, like
other contemporaries, tit first believed in Mary's guilt, quite
changed her view about the year 1575, then writing to her
daughler-in-l.tw, and advising her to trust in God and that all
would yet be well, adding, "the treachery of the traitors
who accused you being now better known than before."*
Notwithstanding the maternal instinct, strong in the heart
of Darnlsy's mother, yet the progress of events removed the
scales from her eyes, so that she held the assassins of her son
responsible for their guilt, without enveloping in their
deserved ii.famy the helpless woman who at once claimed
sympathy and demanded justice.
It is impossible to scan the Cecil Manuscripts without
seeing that whether Mary Stuart did or did not aid Babington
in his treason, the act would be but an incident in the weary
passage which, with more or less devious course, was destined
to end at Fotheringay. One ray of hop 3 seemed to brighten
the last few years of the exile's life. Mary's son, the King
of Scotland, was approaching manhood, and had it in his
power to offer an alliance to Spain, so that the harbours of
the Northern Kingdom might have sheltered some of the
Spaniards from those tempestuous winds which destroyed
them. In McCrie's ' Life of Andrew Melville ' there is a
striking picture of a representative Don, who commanded
* Skelton's ' Maitland of Lethington,' vol. ii. p. 333.