Scotland, between the queen regent, who wished to suppress the national independence, and extinguish the Protestant religion, and the Protestants, who comprised a great part of the nation, and who were resolved on the utter extirpation of Romanism and the limitation of the regal power. The Lords of the Congregation implored the aid of England, which Elizabeth was ready to grant, both from political and religious motives. The Protestant cause was in the ascendant, when the queen regent died, in 1560. The same year died Francis II., of France; and Mary, now a widow, resolved to return to her own kingdom. She landed at Leith, August, 1561, and was received with the grandest demonstration of joy. For a time, affairs were tolerably tranquil, Mary having intrusted the great Protestant nobles with power. She was greatly annoyed, however, by Knox, who did not treat her with the respect due to a queen, and who called her Jezebel; but the reformer escaped punishment on account of his great power. [Sidenote: Marriage of Mary--Darnley.] In 1565, Mary married her cousin, Lord Darnley, son of the Earl of Lennox,--a match exceedingly distasteful to Elizabeth, who was ever jealous of Mary, especially in matrimonial matters, since the Scottish queen had not renounced her pretensions to the throne of her grandfather, Henry VII. The character of Elizabeth now appears in its worst light; and meanness and jealousy took the place of that magnanimity which her admirers have ascribed to her. She fomented disturbances in Scotland, and incited the queen's natural brother, the Prior of St. Andrews, now Earl of Murray, to rebellion, with the expectation of obtaining the government of the country. He formed a conspiracy to seize the persons of Mary and her husband. The plot was discovered, and Murray fled to England; but it was still unremittingly pursued, till at length it was accomplished. Darnley, the consort of Mary, was a man of low tastes, profligate habits, and shallow understanding. Such a man could not long retain the affections of the most accomplished woman of her age, accustomed to flattery, and bent on pursuing her own pleasure, at any cost. Disgust and coldness therefore took place. Darnley, enraged at this increasing coldness, was taught to believe that he was supplanted in the queen's affections by an Italian favorite, the musician Rizzio, whom Mary had made her secretary. He therefore signed a bond, with certain lords, for the murder of the Italian, who seems to have been a man of no character. One evening, as the queen was at supper, in her private apartment, with the countess of Argyle and Rizzio, the Earl of Morton, with one hundred and sixty men, took possession of the palace of Holyrood, while Darnley himself showed the way to a band of ruffians to the royal presence. Rizzio was barbarously murdered in the presence of the queen, who endeavored to protect him.