It is worth noticing, that while Mary was thus occupied in attending to Darnley, the Earl of Bothwell returned to Scotland from his involuntary banishment. His former misdemeanours were not yet forgotten, and he was summoned by the Queen and Murray to take his trial in Edinburgh; but not liking to trust himself in the hands of his ancient enemies, he again left the country for six months. He did not depart before giving utterance to several violent threats against Murray and Maitland, and speaking so disrespectfully of the Queen, that Randolph says she declared to him, upon her honour, that he should never receive favour at her hands.[87] The Queen of Scots being now resolved to bestow her hand on Darnley, sent her Secretary, Maitland, to London, to intimate her intentions, and to request Elizabeth's approbation. This was the very last thing Elizabeth meant to give. The matter had now arrived exactly at the point to which she had all along wished to bring it. She had prevailed upon Mary to abandon the idea of a foreign alliance; she had induced her to throw away some valuable time in ridiculous negociations concerning the Earl of Leicester; she had consented, first that the Earl of Lennox, and then that his son Darnley, should go into Scotland; and she did not say a single syllable against it till she had allowed Mary to be persuaded, that no marriage in Christendom could be more prudent. It was now that the cloven-foot was to betray itself; that her faction was to be called upon to exert itself in Scotland; that the cup was to be dashed from Darnley's lips; and that Mary was to be involved in the vortex of civil dissension. The historian Castelnau, whom Mary at this time sent as her ambassador to France, and who there obtained their Majesties' consent to the marriage, mentions, that when he returned through England, he found the Queen much colder than formerly, complaining that Mary had subtracted her relation and subject, and that she was intending to marry him without her permission, and against her approbation. "And yet I am sure," adds Castelnau, "that these words were very far from her heart; for she used all her efforts, and spared nothing to set this marriage a-going."[88]