Note 15 — Chapter XXVIII · THE ELIZABETHAN SETTLEMENT IN CHURCH AND STATE 1558-1570

The Darnley Marriage. 1565.—The sense of mental superiority could not satisfy a woman such as Mary. Her life was a lonely one, and it was soon known that she was on the look-out for a husband. The choice of a husband by the ruler of Scotland could not be indifferent to Elizabeth, and in 1564 Elizabeth offered to Mary her own favourite Dudley, whom she created Earl of Leicester. Very likely Elizabeth imagined that Leicester would be as pleasing to Mary as he was to herself. Mary could only regard the proposal as an insult. In 1565 she married her second cousin, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley.[15] Elizabeth was alarmed, taking the marriage as a sign that Mary intended to defy her in everything, and urged the Scottish malcontents, at whose head was Mary's illegitimate brother, the Earl of Murray, to rebel. Mary chased them into England, where Elizabeth protested loudly and falsely that she knew nothing of their conspiracy.