Note 299 — Chapter IX · 1568-1569

Although in all her letters Mary designates Cecil as her enemy, she could, when not carried away by anger, perceive his good qualities. In February 1569 she was removed to Tutbury, and was extremely angry and alarmed at this. In conversation with Henry Knollys, who repeated the conversation to a correspondent of Cecil’s (Hatfield Papers, part i. 1279), “she spared not to give forth that the Secretary was her enemy, and that she mistrusted by this removing he would cause her to be made away.” But when her passion was over, she said that though the Secretary were not her friend, he was an expert, wise man, wishing it might be her luck to get the friendship of so wise a man.