Lethington, of course with Mary’s acquiescence, then shifted his ground. He and Murray had always been strong partisans of England, with the idea of securing the succession to Mary of a Protestant Britain; but, out of patience at last with this new rebuff from Elizabeth, they determined to throw over England and Protestantism, and marry Mary to a nominee of Philip and defy Elizabeth to do her worst. So, at dead of night, again and again, Lethington, the Scottish minister, landed from his boat at the dark stairs of Durham House, and remained for hours closeted with Bishop Quadra. The Bishop himself was daily growing more bitter against Elizabeth. She had now openly aided the French Protestants against the Catholics. She had treated him personally with marked contumely, raiding his house on the pretext that people other than his own servants attended Mass there, for she knew she could do all this now with impunity, because Philip could not afford to quarrel with her whilst the Catholics in France were in a bad way. So the Bishop listened eagerly as the Scot told him how the Queen of England had deceived his mistress, and now again had evaded the question of her succession; how she had artfully stepped in by intrigue, and had rendered abortive all the negotiations for the marriage of Mary with a fitting foreign prince, and had tried to drive her into some unworthy marriage. “Had she not better accept any marriage that the Queen of England proposes for her?” asked Quadra, as a feeler, “if in return she obtains her recognition as the heiress of the English Crown?” No, replied Lethington, emphatically. They had made up their mind that the only way was to force Elizabeth, by marrying Mary to a powerful Catholic prince, with sufficient force behind him to maintain the rights of the Queen of Scots. And then, after a little fencing on both sides, he proposed that Don Carlos should become King Consort of Scotland, and afterwards of Great Britain, with Mary for his wife. Mary was, he said, quite resolved never to marry a Protestant or to accept any husband on the bidding of the Queen of England, and if her approaches to Spain were not well received she would offer to marry her young brother-in-law, Charles IX.