Cecil’s characteristic policy is plainly seen in the Queen’s treatment of Murray. He invariably endeavoured to keep Elizabeth legally in the right, and usually with success. But still Murray and the Scottish Protestants were now his main instruments for preventing the danger approaching England over the Scottish Border. The old national lines of division had grown fainter with the international league of Catholics facing a league of Protestants. Mary Stuart had definitely thrown in her lot with the former, in the hope of satisfying her ambition;[226] and the Scottish spectre was perhaps more threatening to England at this moment than ever it had been before. The obvious course was that which Cecil followed—namely, to avoid an excuse for a national war or for foreign interference, and to encourage the Scottish Protestants to stand for the liberties they had won; whilst assuming as indisputable that they were not in arms against their sovereign, but against their enemies and hers, who had interposed between the Queen and her loving subjects. CHAPTER VIII 1566-1567 Through the spring of 1566 the unfortunate Mary Stuart hurried to her destruction. Her dislike of her husband increased as Bothwell obtained more influence over her; all prudence with regard to the overt favouring of Catholicism was cast aside, Murray and the “rebels” were sternly forbidden to return to Scotland, and the breach between Mary and “her good sister” grew wider every day. Nor is this to be wondered at. Randolph was busy in supporting the Protestants, and had been warned away from Mary’s court. His letters to Cecil are full of dread foreboding of disaster to come, foreboding which most historians interpret as foreknowledge. Cecil’s enemies have sought industriously to connect him with the sanguinary scenes which were shortly afterwards enacted in Scotland; but they have always reasoned from the information contained in Randolph’s letters to him, which in no case can be considered as evidence against him. That he was aware before Rizzio’s murder that some sort of plot existed,[227] and that Murray and his friends were parties to it, is certain; but that he himself had any share in its concoction, so far as the killing of Rizzio is concerned, has never been proved, and is most improbable.[228] As has been seen, his remedy for the Scottish danger was not murder; for so far-seeing a man must have known that the killing of a favourite secretary could not divert Mary from the league of Catholic sovereigns, or alter her policy towards England whilst Huntly, Bothwell, and Athol were at her side, and papal emissaries in her close confidence. The killing of Rizzio satisfied Darnley’s spite, and served Murray’s and Argyll’s personal ends, but was more likely to injure than benefit English national objects.