It was on the 12th of January 1569, that the Earl of Murray and the Scottish Commissioners obtained permission to return home, the Regent having previously received from Elizabeth a loan of 5000_l._, lent him "for the maintenance of peace between the realms of England and Scotland," or in other words, as a bribe to secure his co-operation in all time coming.[174] Mary, on the contrary, was removed from Bolton, to the Castle of Tutbury in Staffordshire, farther in the interior of England, and was placed under the charge of Lord Shrewsbury, to whom Tutbury belonged. Elizabeth was unwilling to allow her captive to remain long in any one place, lest she should form connections and friendships, which might lead to arrangements for an escape. Besides, Sir Francis Knollys had represented, that unless it was determined to keep the Scottish Queen so close a prisoner, that she should not be allowed to ride out occasionally, which would be death to her, she could not remain any longer at Bolton, for want of forage and provisions.[175] During the year, she was taken about by Shrewsbury, on occasional visits, to several mansions which he possessed in different parts of England; but Tutbury was her head-quarters; and wherever she went, she was very strictly guarded. "If I might give advice," says one of Cecil's friends, in a letter he wrote to him about this time, "there should very few subjects of this land have access to a conference with this lady; for, beside that she is a goodly personage (and yet in truth not comparable to our Sovereign), she hath withal an alluring grace, a pretty Scotch speech, and a searching wit, clouded with mildness. The greatest person about her is the Lord Livingston, and the lady his wife, which is a fair gentlewoman. She hath nine women more, fifty persons in her household, with ten horses. Lord Shrewsbury is very watchful of his charge; but the Queen overwatches them all, for it is one of the clock at least every night ere she go to bed. I asked her Grace, since the weather did cut off all exercise abroad, how she passed the time within? She said, that all the day she wrought with her needle, and that the diversity of the colours made the work seem less tedious; and she continued so long till even pain made her give over; and with that laid her hand upon her left side, and complained of an old grief newly increased there. She then entered upon a pretty disputable comparison between carving, painting, and working with the needle, affirming painting, in her own opinion, for the most commendable quality."[176]