Windebank had been protesting for some time his own unfitness—which was obvious—and sending hints of the ill-conduct of his charge, who had borrowed money on the credit of others, and scandalised his friends by his dissoluteness; but at last the long-suffering tutor rebelled, and wrote, 26th April, to Cecil, “I have forborne to write plainly, but now I am clean out of hope, and am forced to do so. Sir, I see that Mr. Thomas has utterly no mind nor disposition to apply to any learning; being carried away by other affections that rule him, so that it maketh him forget his duty in all things;” and with this Windebank resigns his charge, for Thomas had openly defied him; advocates his immediate recall if the war in France will allow him to come, or otherwise that he should be sent to Flanders. But Windebank himself had had enough of Thomas Cecil, and refused to accompany him further. This instructive correspondence helps us to see that, beyond even his wounded paternal affection, Sir William Cecil’s deepest feeling was sensitiveness to the opinion of the world about him. That his son should be unworthy touched him to the quick; but that the world should see any shame or reproach resting upon the heir of his house and name, was unendurable agony to one whose main social aims were to trace an ancient ancestry and head a noble posterity. CHAPTER VI 1562-1564 The abortive conspiracy of the Hamiltons in the spring of 1562, and Arran’s madness, finally proved the hopelessness of his suit for Mary’s hand, and Lord James and Maitland had now abandoned him. Both of those statesmen, in union with Cecil, still strove to hold the balance evenly, and to avoid religious strife in the country, in the hope that if the Scottish Queen married a nominee of England, Elizabeth would eventually recognise her as the heiress to the English throne. But the agitation of the English Catholics, and the attempts of Darnley’s mother to force matters, had rendered the position extremely difficult, and Cecil was busy unravelling plots real and imaginary. The visit of a Swedish Ambassador to Scotland on a matrimonial mission had caused a sudden scare in London; but Mary’s prompt dismissal of him, and her continued amiable letters to Elizabeth, had somewhat disarmed suspicion against her personally. Her uncle the Marquis d’Elbœuf was splendidly entertained in the English court on his way home to France, and negotiations were set on foot for a visit of Mary to the north of England in the summer, for the purpose of an interview with the English Queen. But withal Cecil was ill at ease, for the Guises and the Catholics of France were now in arms,[163] and it was impossible to see how the great struggle of the faith would end. If the Guises finally captured the government of France, then England must accept Philip’s terms for a Spanish alliance, or be inevitably ruined. But for the present it was the policy of Elizabeth and Cecil to keep a tight rein on the Catholics in