And now, while the friends of Mary, numerous as they were, remained irresolute and inactive, the dominant faction made the most strenuous efforts to strengthen itself. In the towns, where its strength chiefly lay, and especially in Edinburgh, says Mr. Hosack, the Protestant preachers rendered the most valuable aid. By indulging in furious invectives against the queen, and charging her directly with the murder, they prepared their hearers for the prospect of her speedy deposition, and the _establishment of a regency in the name of the infant prince_. It is clear that Murray was not forgotten by his friends the preachers. Strange as it may appear, there can be but little doubt that Elizabeth was sincerely indignant on hearing of the outrageous treatment of Mary by the lords. In her whole history, she never appeared to so much advantage as a woman and a queen. She would not stand tamely by, she said, and see her cousin murdered; and if remonstrances proved ineffectual, she would send an army to chastise and reduce them to obedience. Such conduct, and her messages to Mary while a prisoner at Lochleven, no doubt inspired the Scottish queen with the fatal confidence which induced her, a few months afterward, to seek refuge in England. Unfortunately for Elizabeth, and perhaps more unfortunately for Mary, the Queen of England's reputation for duplicity was now so well established that no one but her own ministers believed she was now sincere. Maitland, for the Scotch nobles, plainly told Elizabeth's ambassador that, after what had occurred in times past, "they could place no reliance on his mistress;" and the King of France said to Sir Henry Norris, "I do not greatly trust her." Meantime, the ministers daily denounced Mary as a murderess in their sermons, and demanded that she should be brought to justice like an ordinary criminal. Elizabeth's ambassador tried to induce the confederate lords to restrain the savage license of the preachers; but we cannot doubt, says Mr. Hosack, that they were secretly encouraged by their noble patrons to prepare the minds of the people for the deposition, if not for the murder, of the queen. Throgmorton's opinion was that, but for his presence in Scotland, she would have been sacrificed to the ambition and the bigotry of her subjects. Still a prisoner at Lochleven, Mary had to suffer the brutality of the ruffian Lindsay, and the infamous hypocrisy of Mr. Froude's "stainless Murray," who, with money in both pockets from France and England, now came, with characteristic deceit, to defraud his sister of her crown. Mr. Hosack thus estimates his performance: "First, to terrify his sister with the prospect of immediate death, then to soothe her with false promises of safety, and finally, with well-feigned reluctance, to accept the dignity he was longing to grasp, displayed a mixture of brutality and cunning of which he alone was capable."