of protection, and Mary, impelled by some fateful impulse, resolved to throw herself on the mercy of her kinswoman.[79] On the 16th day of May, her little boat crossed the Solway.  When the Queen of Scots, the daughter of the House of Guise, the widow of a monarch of the line of Valois, set foot on English soil as a suppliant for the protection which came to her only by death, the last faint hope must have faded out of the hearts of the few who still longed for an independent Scotland, bound by gratitude and by ancient tradition to the ally who, more than once, had proved its salvation.

FOOTNOTES: 

[Footnote 61:  Cf. the present writer’s “Mary, Queen of Scots” (Scottish History from Contemporary Writers).]

[Footnote 62:  The spelling “Stuart”, which Queen Mary brought with her from France, now superseded the older “Stewart".]

[Footnote 63:  Foreign Calendar:  Elizabeth, December 31st, 1560.]

[Footnote 64:  Cabala, Sive Scrinia Sacra, pp. 345-349.]

[Footnote 65:  Foreign Calendar, May 7th, 1562.]

[Footnote 66:  Foreign Calendar, June 8th, 1562.]

[Footnote 67:  Foreign Calendar, March 31st, 1561.]

[Footnote 68:  Foreign Calendar, 20th August, 1563.]

[Footnote 69:  Sir James Melville’s Memoirs, pp. 116-130 (Bannatyne Club).]

[Footnote 70:  Laing’s Knox, vi, p. 541.]

[Footnote 71:  Laing’s Knox, vol. ii, p. 513.  Melville’s Memoirs, p. 134.]

[Footnote 72:  Foreign Calendar, July-December, 1565.]

[Footnote 73:  The evidence for the scandal which associated Mary’s name with that of Rizzio will be found in Mr. Hay Fleming’s Mary, Queen of Scots, pp. 398-401.  It is very far indeed from being conclusive.]

[Footnote 74:  Foreign Calendar, March, 1566.]

[Footnote 75:  Mary to Elizabeth, July, 1566.  Keith’s History, ii, p. 442.]

[Footnote 76:  It is almost certain that Darnley was murdered before the explosion.]

[Footnote 77:  Mary’s defenders point out that her 25th birthday fell in November, 1567, and that it was necessary to prevent her from taking any steps for the restitution of Church land; and they look on the plot as devised by Bothwell and the other nobles, the latter aiming at using Bothwell as a tool to ruin Mary.  On the question of the Casket Letters, see Mr. Lang’s Mystery of Mary Stuart.]

[Footnote 78:  Keith’s History, ii, pp. 736-739.]

[Footnote 79:  In forming any moral judgment with regard to Elizabeth’s conduct towards Mary, it must be remembered that Mary fled to England trusting to the English Queen’s invitation.]

CHAPTER IX

THE UNION OF THE CROWNS

1568-1625