ts at last were
trampled out in France, had Mary Stuart been less than the most
imprudent or the most unlucky of sovereigns. But Providence, or the
folly of those with whom they had to deal, fought for them. I need not
follow the wild story of the crimes and catastrophes in which Mary
Stuart's short reign in Scotland closed. Neither is her own share, be it
great or small, or none at all, in those crimes of any moment to us
here. It is enough that, both before that strange business and after it,
when at Holyrood or across the Border, in Sheffield or Tutbury, her ever
favourite dream was still the English throne. Her road towards it was
through a Catholic revolution and the murder of Elizabeth. It is enough
that, both before and after, the aristocracy of Scotland, even those
among them who had seemed most zealous for the Reformation, were eager
to support her. John Knox alone, and the commons, whom Knox had raised
into a political power, remained true.

Much, indeed, is to be said for the Scotch nobles. In the first shock of
the business at Kirk-o'-Field, they forgot their politics in a sense of
national disgrace. They sent the queen to Loch Leven. They intended to
bring her to trial, and, if she was proved guilty, to expose and perhaps
punish her. All parties for a time agreed in this--even the Hamiltons
themselves; and had they been left alone they would have done it. But
they had a perverse neighbour in England, to whom crowned heads were
sacred. Elizabeth, it might have been thought, would have had no
particular objection; but Elizabeth had aims of her own which baffled
calculation. Elizabeth, the representative of revolution, yet detested
revolutionists. The Reformers in Scotland, the Huguenots in France, the
insurgents in the United Provinces, were the only friends she had in
Europe. For her own safety she was obliged to encourage them; yet she
hated them all, and would at any moment have abandoned them all, if, in
any other way, she could have secured herself. She might have conquered
her personal objection to Knox--she could not conquer her aversion to a
Church which rose out of revolt against authority, which was democratic
in constitution and republican in politics. When driven into alliance
with the Scotch Protestants, she angrily and passionately disclaimed any
community of creed with them; and for subjects to sit in judgment on
their prince was a precedent which she would not tolerate. Thus she
flung her mant