On the 14th February 1567, Cecil sent word to his friend Guzman that he had just received secret advice of the murder of Darnley, of which he gave some hasty particulars. The intelligence could hardly have come as a surprise to the Spaniard, for a month previously he had informed Philip that some such act was contemplated. Within a few hours of the reception of the news in London, Leicester sent his brother, the Earl of Warwick, to Catharine Grey’s husband, to offer him his services in the matter of the succession. Five days afterwards Sir James Melvil came with full particulars of the foul deed at Kirk o’ Field, and at once rumour was busy with the name of Mary Stuart as an accomplice in her husband’s death. Elizabeth expressed sorrow and compassion on the day she heard the news, but rather doubtfully told Guzman “that she could not believe that the Queen of Scots could be to blame for so dreadful a thing, notwithstanding the murmurs of the people.” When Guzman, however, pointed out to her how dangerous it would be for the opposite party (Catharine Grey’s friends) to make capital out of the accusation, the Queen agreed that it would be wise to discountenance it, and to keep friendly with Mary Stuart, in order to prevent her from falling under French influence again. In a letter from Cecil to Norris (20th February) he says: “The Queen sent yesterday my Lady Howard and my wife to Lady Lennox, in the Tower, to open this matter to her, who could not by any means be kept from such passions of mind as the horribleness of the fact did require.… I hope her Majesty will show some favourable compassion of the said lady, whom any humane nature must needs pity.… The most suspicion that I can hear is of Earl Bothwell, yet I would not be thought the author of any such report.”[242] Lady Margaret, in her agony of grief, made no scruple at first in accusing her daughter-in-law of complicity in the murder; but the bereaved mother left the Tower on the following day, doubtless warned of the unwisdom of saying what she thought. At least, when she saw Sir James Melvil she told him, “She did not believe that Mary had been a party to the death of her son, but she could not help complaining of her bad treatment of him.” But whatever she might say, the spirits of the Catholic party in England sank to zero at the black cloud which hovered over their candidate. “Every day it becomes clearer that the Queen of Scotland must take some step to prove that she had no hand in the death of her husband if she is to prosper in her claims to the succession here,”[243] wrote Guzman. Fortunately this book is not the place in which to discuss the vexed question of Mary’s complicity in Darnley’s death, but her contemporaries both in England and Scotland, as well as abroad, certainly thought her guilty. Cecil, writing to Sir Henry Norris in March, mentions the suspicions against Bothwell, Balfour, &c., and says, “There are words added, which I am loth to report, that touch the