“It was the injustice of Henry VIII.’s will in ignoring the descendants of his eldest sister, and placing those of the youngest in the order of the regal succession next his own children, which rendered it expedient for Mary, Queen of Scots, afterwards to obtain a recognition of her rights from Elizabeth, although in point of legitimacy, Mary’s lineal title to the throne of England was considered by all the Roman Catholics in Europe, and the people still attached to that communion in England and Ireland, as more valid than that of Elizabeth. Elizabeth had, however, been recognized by the Parliament of England as the successor of her late sister, Queen Mary I., and solemnly accepted by the realm on the day of her consecration as the sovereign. It was therefore futile to urge in depreciation of her title the stigma which her unnatural father’s declaration, her unfortunate mother’s admission, and Cranmer’s sentence, had combined to pass upon her legitimacy, for, according to the constitutional laws of England, the crown had taken away all defects that might previously have existed. The demand of Mary Stuart to be acknowledged as her successor was in itself the strongest recognition of the unimpugnable nature of Elizabeth’s rights, and therefore ought to have been met in a friendly spirit, instead of being repelled in a manner which naturally inspired suspicions in the mind of Mary, that Elizabeth intended to supersede her legitimate claims in favor either of one of the descendants of the youngest sister of Margaret Tudor, or to bring forward the Earl of Huntingdon, great-grandson of George, Duke of Clarence.” It was poor Mary Stuart’s first father-in-law, Henry II. of France, who cost her her head, by prematurely declaring her queen of England, in 1559, and it was largely owing to the base treacheries and plots of her second father-in-law, the Earl of Lennox, that the net-work of vile lies, and slanders were spread about her in Scotland, which afterwards so fatally entrapped her, to which the weak and vacillating Darnley lent himself by turns, and then repenting, sued for pardon, which the forgiving Mary had no sooner granted, than he was again persuaded by her enemies to betray her.