Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 10.djvu/426

406 REIGN OF ELIZABETH. [CH. 60. Henry Killigrew to Edinburgh, to feel his way with the Regent. She imagined that Morton and Morton's party were so circumstanced that her support was indispensable to them, and that she might make her own conditions. A few days after Killigrew' s arrival, he hastened to undeceive her. If the Regent's requests were not granted, he dared not, he said, so much as enter on the special subject of his mission. The Scots told him that what his mistress had done at Edinburgh, she had done not for -them but for herself ; she had left them alone till she was frightened by the Paris massacre, and now she evidently cared not whether they sank or swam : the French set more value on their friendship : if Elizabeth would not help them France was ready to take her place, and the young King would probably be sent to Paris. 1 Could the Queen of Scots then be exchanged for James P James to be brought up in England, and Mary Stuart to be put into the hands of the Regent, to be dealt with as he might think proper ? Killigrew was empowered in his instructions to make the oifer if he thought expedient. He did not think it would be ac- cepted. He ventured a hint, and his expectations were confirmed. ' I think,' he said in a letter to "Walsing- ham, ' that you there will never agree to the sure way of remedy (the execution of the Queen of Scots), and here they will be daunted to accept the conditions of the other (the delivery of James), which cannot be done 1 Killigrew to Walsingham, June I Burghley, June 23 ; to Hatton, Junt. 17, June 21, June 23 ; Killigrew to | 24: MSS. Scotland.