Cecil made fair or evasive promises. In the meantime Elizabeth and he played the Leicester farce, to kill time, and probably in the hope that Mary, with her Stewart impulsiveness, would make some sarcastic remark on Elizabeth’s policy, or that some other event would transpire upon which they might seize, as a plea for discontinuing negotiations, and as a screen behind which to develop their long-settled design for the overthrow of the northern Queen. But Mary became tired of Elizabeth’s and Cecil’s policy of evasion and delay, and feeling that it would be unbecoming her dignity as an independent sovereign, to allow herself to be played with and deceived, she resolved to break away from their snares and to marry where she would. She escaped Scylla only to be caught in Charybdis. At the court of Elizabeth was an accomplished young lord of eighteen years, connected by blood with both the royal houses of Stewart and Tudor, whose father, although a Scottish Earl, had resided twenty years in England. This youth was Henry Stewart--Lord Darnley. The question of a marriage with Darnley had already been represented to Mary by his friends, and now she decided to entertain it. In May, 1655, after some opposition, especially on the part of Moray, Parliament gave its unanimous consent to the projected marriage, which was consequently celebrated on July 29th, and a new era opened in the life of Mary Stewart. Immediately after the marriage, the royal pair were called upon to take the field against insurgent nobles. Moray, although he had given his consent to the proposed marriage, had subsequently declared against it, and had raised an insurrection in the country. He feared, so at least he professed, that the Queen’s union with a "Papist" threatened the well-being of the "reformed" religion in Scotland. But whoever is versed in the Earl’s history can discover another motive for his opposition, namely, his well-founded fear that Mary’s marriage and the return of the Lennox Stewarts to Scotland would forever shut himself out from the throne. However, the marriage was completed and the insurgent lords summoned to appear at court, under pain of being considered rebels. They heeded not the summons, but prepared for war. With the assured support of Elizabeth, who likewise was offended, or pretended to be offended, at the Darnley marriage, what had they to fear? This was a critical moment for Mary. Would she try to coax the rebels into friendship by promises of pardon, and to conciliate Elizabeth by humble apologies for whatever in the late transaction might have offended her English cousin, or would she take up the gauntlet that had been thrown down, and risk the consequences of an armed encounter with the rebels? Her Secretary, Sir William Maitland, saw the danger that threatened his mistress and, in his correspondence with Cecil, strove to secure an adjustment of difficulties, by a reasonable and peaceful policy,