From this period to the year 1581, Mary seems to have been nearly forgotten by all parties. Elizabeth, satisfied with keeping her rival securely imprisoned, busied herself with other affairs of political moment; and, in Scotland, as the Prince grew up, and years passed on, death, or other causes, gradually diminished the number of Mary's adherents; and though the country was far from being in tranquillity, the dissensions assumed a new shape, for even they who opposed the regency of the Earl of Morton, found it more for their interest to associate themselves with the young King than with the absent Queen. Mary became gradually more solitary and more depressed. Though yet only in the prime of womanhood, she had lived to see almost all her best friends, and some of her worst enemies, depart from the world before her. The specious Murray,--the imbecile Lennox,--Hamilton, the last supporter of Catholicism,--Knox, the great champion of the Reformation,--the gentle Mar,--the brilliant but misguided Norfolk,--the gallant Kircaldy,--and the sagacious Maitland,--had all been removed from the scene; and in the melancholy solitude of her prison, she wept to think that she should have been destined to survive them. But Elizabeth had no sympathy for her griefs, and every rumour which reached her ear, only served as an excuse for narrowing and rendering more irksome Mary's captivity. Even the few female friends who had been at first allowed to attend her, were taken from her; no congenial society of any sort was allowed her; it was rarely, indeed, that she was permitted to hunt or hawk, or take any exercise out of doors; and the wearisome monotony of her sedentary life, at once impaired her health and broke down her spirits. The manner in which she spoke of her own situation, in letters she wrote about this period to France and elsewhere, is not the less affecting, that it is characterized by that mental dignity and queenly spirit which no afflictions could overcome. "I find it necessary," she wrote from Tutbury in 1680, "to renew the memorial of my grievances respecting the remittance of my dowry, the augmentation of my attendants, and a change of residence,--circumstances apparently trivial, and of small importance to the Queen, my good sister, but which I feel to be essential to the preservation of my existence. Necessity alone could induce me to descend to earnest and reiterated supplications, the dearest price at which any boon can be purchased. To convey to you an idea, of my present situation, I am on all sides enclosed by fortified walls, on the summit of a hill which lies exposed to every wind of heaven: within these bounds, not unlike the wood of Vincennes, is a very old edifice, originally a hunting lodge, built merely of lath and plaster, the plaster in many places crumbling away. This edifice, detached from the walls, about twenty feet, is sunk so low, that the rampart of earth behind the wall is level with