Note 250 — Chapter VIII · 1566-1567

Again, on the 3rd September, Cecil writes to Norris: “The Queen’s Majesty, our sovereign, remaineth still offended with the Lords (of Scotland) for the Queen: the example moveth her.” Later in the month (27th September) a French envoy came through England on a mission to Scotland, and proposed to Elizabeth that joint action should be taken to secure Mary’s liberation. The envoy was persuaded in London to refrain from continuing his journey, and we see that Cecil’s feeling in favour of the Protestant party was gradually gaining ground in Elizabeth’s counsels. He writes: “Surely if either the French King or the (English) Queen should appear to make any force against them of Scotland for the Queen (of Scots’) cause, we find it credible that it were the next way to make an end of her; and for that cause her Majesty is loth to take that way.” As an instance of the divergence of the Queen and Cecil during the summer, Guzman, detailing a private conversation he had with the Queen in July, during which he warned her again against French interference in Scotland, writes: “Certain things passed in the conversation which she begged me not to communicate even to Cecil.”