The Queens of Scotland (Volume 2) (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1887. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER V. A.D.1563. Randolph, the English ambassador, visited his own court during the absence of Queen Mary in this summer of 1563, and seconded Queen Elizabeth in her intrigue for beguiling the Queen of Scots into a marriage with Lord Robert Dudley. He did not return to Edinburgh until December, when, although ill in bed, the queen consented to see him, because she understood that he was charged with private letters from Elizabeth, and the gift of a fine diamond which he was desirous of delivering in person. She was much pleased with the letters and the ring, which she placed upon her finger, but she was not well enough to converse long with Randolph. She was suffering from a low nervous fever, and her attempts to exert herself to receive her ministers, who held their cabinet councils in her bedroom, and to give audience to ambassadors from foreign courts, so aggravated her disease that her physicians feared for her life. Yet, in the midst of her illness, she was called upon to perform a most important duty. Two members of Knox's congregation having been arrested and thrown into prison, for raising a riot in the Chapel Royal at Holyrood, to prevent the service from being performed there during the queen's absence, Knox wrote a letter exhorting the brethren in all parts of Scotland to convene in Edinburgh on the day appointed for the trial of the offenders--in other words, to excite a tumult, and probably rekindle the horrors of religious warfare. Great excitement prevailed, and Knox was summoned to appear before the council to answer for his conduct. Poor Mary, suffering though she was, had to leave her sick-bed to appear among a set of wrangling statesmen--pitiless traitors for the most part--and was compelled by her ministers to take upon herself the...