Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 9.djvu/221

i57o.] THE RISING OF THE NORTH. 207 pecting to be received with enthusiasm and to have the Castle gates thrown open to them ; they found Grange and Maitland, and Lord Hume, in council with Morton, and themselves the object of universal indignation and rage. Bothwellhaugh had been nothing but the tool of his race. In such a case, it was said, neither ' order of law ' nor form was necessary ; ' war should be declared against the whole house of Hamilton, and they should be extirpated root and branch.' 1 'The murder was so odious/ wrote Lord Hunsdon, ' and the death so lamented with every honest man, as, where there were great factions grown, and many private quarrels among them, they were all presently reconciled, and had avowed the revenge. ' ' Grange would spend life and goods in the quarrel.' Elizabeth ' might frame the Lords as she would, and have of them what she listed, so they might know her full resolution what they might trust to,' so she would rid them finally of the fear with which they were all possessed, that, sooner or later, for her own con- venience, she would reinstate the deposed Queen. 2 Even Maitland himself, far gone as he was in intrigue and conspiracy, reopened his disused correspondence with Cecil. He too, like the rest, had been so persuaded that Mary Stuart would come back upon them, that she would triumph at last through Elizabeth's weakness, that he had cast his fortunes upon her side. Even now, at this 1 Notes of proceedings on the death of the Regent, February, 1570: MSS. Scotland. 2 Hunsdon to Elizabeth, January 20 : JlfSS. Border. ' Assure your- self,' he added, ' if you do not take heed of that Scottish Queen she will put you in peril, and that ereit be long, for there are many practices abroad.'