Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 7.djvu/456

436 REIGN OF ELIZABETH. [en. 45. subjects there ! farewell, my dear scholars, and may God prosper your studies ! farewell, farewell ! ' l The Queen of Scots meanwhile had recovered rapidly from her confinement, and it seemed as if she had now but to sit still and wait for the fortune which time had so soon to bestow ; yet Melville, on his return to Scot- land, found her less contented than he expected. The Pope, if it was true that she had desired a divorce from her husband, had not smiled upon her wishes; and Melville's well-meant efforts to console her for her do- mestic troubles with her prospects in England, failed wholly of their effect. Five days after James's birth, Killigrew reported that although Darnley was in the Castle and his father in Edinburgh, ' small account was made of them;' Murray, though he continued at the Court, ' found his credit small and his state scarce better than when he looked daily for banishment ; ' Maitland was still a fugitive, and his estates, with the splendid royalties of Dunbar, were in possession of Bothwell ; -7 ' BothwelPs credit with the Queen was more than all the rest together.' 2 It seemed as if Mary Stuart, brave as she might be, in that stormy sea of faction and conspiracy requiredja, man's arm to support hejrj_she wanted jsome one on whose devotion she could depend__to_8hield her from a second night of terror, and such a man she had found in / Bothwell tEe boldest, the most recHess, the most un- i principled of all the nobles in Scotland. Her choice thouglTTmprudent was not unnatural. Bothwell from 1 NICHOLLS'S Progresses of Elizabeth. 2 Killigrew to Cecil, June 24.