the prize they were in search of, they boarded and examined them. One ship they detained, in which was the Earl of Eglinton, and some of Mary's horses and mules, and, under the pretence of suspecting it of piracy, actually carried it into an English harbour. The affectation of "clearing the seas from pirates," as Cecil expresses it, was a mere after-thought, invented to do away with the suspicion which attached itself to this unsuccessful attempt. Its real purpose was openly talked of at the time. Sir Nicholas Bacon, Lord Keeper, in a speech he made at a meeting of the Privy Council in 1562, said frankly,--"Think ye that the Scottish Queen's suit, made in all friendly manner, to come through England at the time she left France, and the denial thereof, unless the treaty were ratified, is by them forgotten, or else your sending of your ships to sea at the time of her passage?" Camden, Holinshed, Spottiswoode, Stranguage, and Buchanan, all speak to the same effect; and Elizabeth's intentions, though frustrated, hardly admit of a doubt.[38] On the 25th of August 1561, Mary sailed out of the harbour of Calais,--not without shedding, and seeing shed many tears. She did not, however, part with all the friends who had accompanied her to the coast. Three of her uncles,--the Duke d'Aumale, the Marquis D'Elbeuf, and the Grand Prior,--the Duke Danville, son to Montmorency, and afterwards Constable of France, one of the most ardent and sincere admirers that Mary perhaps ever had,--and many other persons of rank, among whom was the unfortunate poet Chatelard, who fluttered like a moth round the light in which he was to be consumed,--sailed with her for Scotland. Just as she left the harbour, an unfortunate accident happened to a vessel, which, by unskilful management, struck upon the bar, and was wrecked within a very short distance of her own galley. "This is a sad omen," she exclaimed, weeping. A gentle breeze sprang up; the sails were set, and the little squadron got under way, consisting, as has been said, of only four vessels, for Mary dreaded lest her subjects should suppose that she was coming home with any military force. The feelings of "_la Reine Blanche_," as the French termed her, from the white mourning she wore for Francis, were at all times exceedingly acute. On the present occasion, her grief amounted almost to despair. As long as the light of day continued, she stood immoveable on the vessel's deck, gazing with tearful eyes upon the French coast, and exclaiming incessantly,--"Farewell, France! farewell, my beloved country!" When night approached, and her friends beseeched her to retire to the cabin, she hid her face in her hands, and sobbed aloud. "The darkness which is now brooding over France," said she, "is like the darkness in my own heart." A little afterwards, she added,--"I am unlike the Carthaginian Dido, for she looked perpetually on the sea, when Æneas departed, whilst