Walsingham, 6 Nov. 1585), that the king bore no grudge to Elizabeth for what had happened, and that a league might be immediately concluded. His assurances were completely fulfilled, and at a meeting of the estates held at Linlithgow in December, the league with England was finally ratified (Acta Parl. Scot. iii. 381).
In April of the following year Gray intimated to the Earl of Leicester his intention to raise a body of troops to assist him in the Low Countries (Leicester to Gray, 6 April 1586), and in May communications on this subject were opened with Elizabeth (Gray to Walsingham, 5 May; Archibald Douglas to Walsingham, 6 May; Randolph to Walsingham, 9 May, Cal. State Papers, Scott. Ser. p. 519). Gray began to levy soldiers for the expedition, but after he had proceeded so far, Elizabeth and Leicester changed their minds, and, though willing to accept the aid of the troops, preferred that Gray, if he came to the Low Countries, should do so in a private capacity (Walsingham to Gray, 4 June, ib. p. 523). After various changes of plan the queen on 11 Aug. gave her consent, proposing to advance to him 2,000l. (ib. p. 532); but the matter went no further than the sending of troops by Gray to the aid of Leicester, 140 of whom were captured on the coast of Flanders (Gray Papers, p. 112).
After the condemnation of Mary Queen of Scots, Gray was sounded by Walsingham as to the attitude of James towards her proposed execution, and was fain to confess that the king was not disposed to relish the proposal (Gray to Walsingham, 6 Nov. 1586, Cal. State Papers, Scott. Ser. p. 536). He did the utmost that was consistent with prudence to temper the objections of the king, and recommended an increase in James's pension, and a parliamentary recognition of his title. Gray's appointment, along with Sir Robert Melville, as the king's commissioner to London, placed him in a difficult dilemma. As he himself expressed it, the king, ‘if she die, will quarrel with me. Live she, I shall have double harm’ (Gray to Douglas, 27 Nov.) Before setting out from Scotland he endeavoured to find a way out of his difficulty by recommending that Mary should be put to death by poison (Courcelles to Henry III, 31 Dec. 1586), and he also proposed to Elizabeth that if her life was not to be spared he should ‘be stayed by the way or commanded to retire.’ The instructions of King James were of a mild kind (Gray Papers, pp. 120–5), or, as Gray himself expressed it, his mission was ‘modest, not menacing.’ Indeed, the representations of Gray had so modified the attitude of James, and Gray's secret wishes had so modified his representations to Elizabeth, as practically to render his remonstrances against the execution of Mary little more than formal.
The general belief in Scotland was that Gray had privately advised the death of Mary, and from this time, though he retained the king's favour, he ceased to have any influence in political affairs. Not long after his return he was accused by Sir William Stewart of having confessed that he himself, the secretary Maitland, and others, had been concerned in the action at Stirling in November 1585, but he denied on oath that he had ever made such a statement (Reg. Privy Council Scotl. iv. 164). Notwithstanding this he was committed to ward in the castle of Edinburgh, and on 15 May 1587 he was formally accused before the convention (1) of having trafficked with Spain and the pope for the injury of the protestant religion in Scotland; (2) of having planned the assassination of the vice-chancellor Maitland; (3) of having counterfeited the king's stamp, and made use of it to prevent the king's marriage; and (4) of having for rewards in England consented to Queen Mary's death (Reg. Privy Council Scotl. iv. 166; Gray Papers, pp. 149–51; Pitcairn, Criminal Trials, i. 157–8; Historie of James the Sext, p. 227). After his voluntary confession of sedition, and of having sought to impede the marriage of the king with Anne of Denmark, he was pronounced a traitor, but at the intercession of the estates, especially of Lord John Hamilton (Moysie, Memoirs, p. 63), his life was spared by the king, no doubt gladly enough. In several of the charges on which Gray was condemned the king was deeply implicated; the prevalent suspicion, ‘that there was some mystery lurking in the matter’ (Calderwood, iv. 613), was fully justified. Gray was commanded to leave the country within a month under a penalty of 40,000l.; but probably no break occurred in his friendship with the king. He continued in the possession of the rents of his estates, only being deprived of the abbacy of Dunfermline, which the king found it convenient to bestow on the Earl of Huntly. Gray left Scotland on 7 June 1587, and on the 17th the cause of his banishment was proclaimed at the market cross of Edinburgh (ib. iv. 614). He went to Paris, and afterwards to Italy. Through the interposition of Walsingham he was permitted in 1589 to return (Memorial of instructions to intercede for the Master of Gray, April 1589), and on the last day of May arrived in Scotland from England, along with Lord Hunsdon (Calderwood, v. 59). On 27 Nov. he took his seat in the privy council (Reg. Privy Council Scotl. iv. 441).
