folk] seems to have originally been set on foot by him and William Maitland of Lethington [q. v.], in order to introduce a disturbing element into the negotiations.
After the conclusion of the abortive proceedings at York and Westminster, Leslie, in February 1569, joined Mary at Tutbury Castle; but shortly after his arrival he and Lord Boyd were arrested and placed in ward in Burton-on-Trent, where he remained till the end of April (Discourse, p. 43). During his absence in England he was deprived of the revenues of his bishopric. Elizabeth at his request desired the regent Moray to permit the bishop's officers to collect the revenues of the bishopric (Cal. State Papers, For. Ser. 1569–71, entry 312); but the request was not complied with, and the bishop was for some time in extreme want, till through the intermediation of Queen Mary he received a grant of money from Spain (Discourse, p. 76). Shortly after being set at liberty from Burton-on-Trent, the bishop was appointed by Mary her ambassador to the queen of England, with the special object of arranging conditions by which she might be set at liberty and restored to her crown; but his secret commission extended much beyond this. He was the chief means of communication between Mary and her supporters in Scotland, and largely engaged in intrigues on her behalf, both with the Scottish nobles and with foreign powers. He also found opportunity to publish under an assumed name at London his ‘Defence of the Honour of Queen Mary,’ in which her original right to the succession to the English throne was maintained.
On Norfolk's first committal to the Tower in October 1569 Leslie was interrogated at length by the council as to his connection with the Norfolk marriage scheme (Haynes, State Papers, pp. 543–4; Cal. Hatfield MSS. p. 432). In his reply he gave a minute account of the negotiations, but added that nothing further had passed between Mary and Norfolk since the previous June than ‘an inclination of favour and goodwill in Mary to agree to what might be most acceptable to her majesty,’ and that no contract existed between them (Haynes, pp. 544–7; Cal. Hatfield MSS. i. 434). On 19 Jan. 1569–70 the regent Moray charged the bishop with being concerned in the rebellion of the north of England (Cal. State Papers, For. Ser. 1569–1571, entry 629). On the 30th Hunsdon wrote to a similar effect (ib. entry 655). He was consequently arrested and confined within the Bishop of London's house in the city for four months (Discourse, p. 84). In March, six weeks after his arrest, he was brought before the council at Hampton Court, when he strenuously denied all connection with the rising. The hope of foreign assistance by which it was encouraged was undoubtedly fed by him, but no definite evidence against him was forthcoming, and he was set at liberty in May. He still continued negotiations for Queen Mary's restoration, and on the second invasion of Scotland by the English forces he contrived to have the papal bull deposing Elizabeth nailed against the Bishop of London's door [see Felton, John, d. 1570]. On the final failure in March 1571 of negotiations for Mary's restoration, he endeavoured to enlist the military aid of the king of Spain (letter of the Bishop of Ross, Simancas MS., quoted in Froude, History, ix. 387–9). The papal agent, Ridolfi, was also employed by him to entice the Duke of Norfolk into the scheme on the promise of Mary's hand (the Duke of Alva to Philip II, 7 May 1571, in Teulet, v. 77–88); but the conspiracy was cut short by the capture in April of Ridolfi's messenger, Charles Baillie [q. v.], at Dover, with copies of the bishop's book in defence of the queen, and with compromising letters to Norfolk, Leslie, and the Spanish ambassador. Baillie managed with the connivance of Lord Cobham to convey the suspected papers secretly to the bishop, who with the aid of the Spanish ambassador hastily replaced them with a set of concocted documents of a faintly compromising kind to be laid before Lord Burghley. Although a full confession of the deception was ultimately wrung from Baillie on 5 May 1571 (letter of Baillie to Lord Burghley in Murdin's State Papers, pp. 11–12; Cal. Hatfield MSS. pt. i. pp. 498–9), Baillie found means of warning the bishop, who at once ‘put in order’ all his papers (Discourse, p. 185). Meantime the bishop had become prostrated by his anxieties, and was confined to bed; but his malady did not prevent his severe interrogation by four members of the council, who entered his house on 13 May. To their demand for explanations (see Articles for the Bishop of Ross in Murdin, p. 13) the bishop, while declining as ambassador to regard himself as accountable to any but his royal mistress, assured them that the utterances of Ridolfi were ‘nothing but an Italian discourse of no moment, nor yet to be taken heed unto’ (Discourse, p. 166; Murdin, pp. 14–15). Notwithstanding his protestations he was carried next day to the house of the Bishop of Ely in Holborn, and was sent to the bishop's country residence in the Isle of Ely on 17 Aug., after the confessions to Barker, Higford, Banister, and others had exposed
