The tragedy of Rizzio, the vicious foolishness of Darnley, the levity of Mary, and the falsity of Murray and Morton, destroyed for a time the great dream, once so promising in appearance, that the Queen of Scots would mount the Catholic throne of Britain by the aid of Spain. When Mary was in Lochleven and her infant son had been adopted as their King by the nobles, Elizabeth and Catharine vied with each other in their loud expressions of sympathy with a Queen thus contemned by her subjects, the object in both cases being to obtain, if possible, either through Mary or her persecutors, a pretext to interfere in Scotland, and thus to frustrate the Spanish combination. Murray, who was not in Scotland when Darnley was murdered, found himself assiduously courted, by the French especially, on his way home, and had a long friendly interview even with Guzman in London. After the first shock of dismay caused to the Catholics by the marriage of Mary to Bothwell—a divorced man and a Protestant—public opinion on their part agreed to regard her as innocent of the crimes laid to her charge; and when, on the unhappy 16th May, 1568, Mary, weeping with grief and bitter disappointment, bade a last farewell to the land of her fathers to claim the hospitality of her bitterest enemy, her party in the north still founded their hopes upon her, notwithstanding the black suspicion that hung over her, whilst she was unsubdued and full of plans for future triumph over her enemies. In her first letter to Elizabeth she struck a high but unwise note, claiming admission to the Queen’s presence and English aid to subdue her rebel subjects, failing which she demanded leave to go to France or Spain and obtain assistance there. Elizabeth refused both requests, for whilst she was kept in England the unhappy Mary had nothing to offer in return; but Knollys, who took the message, warned the Queen of England that the Catholic gentry were flocking to salute the fugitive, whose presence in the north was a danger, and Mary sent indignant and imprudent messages by Lord Herries to Elizabeth threatening to appeal to her great Catholic friends on the Continent. This attitude sealed Mary’s fate and determined her imprisonment. Lord Herries talked openly, even in Elizabeth’s palace, of his plans for claiming Catholic aid for his mistress; and although Guzman used all his deft persuasions to soften the English Queen, Elizabeth explained to him quite cogently again and again that she dared not allow Mary to bring foreign Catholic forces into Britain, nor from a safe refuge on the Continent to organise disaffection in England.