some time been Queen
Elizabeth's envoy in Edinburgh. He was an intelligent and well-meaning
man; but Mary was far more than a match for him, as she had been in
France for an abler diplomatist, Throckmorton. Randolph tells the
English minister that Knox is still full of 'good zeal and affection' to
England. 'I know also that his travail and care is great to unite the
hearts of the princes and people of these two realms in perpetual love
and hearty kindness.' In the previous year Randolph had heard an
incident of Knox's first interview with Mary, which we only know from
his letter. Even then Knox 'knocked so hastily upon her heart that he
made her weep, as well you know there be of that sex that will do that
as well for anger as for grief.' But since that date the Queen of Scots
had turned her caressing courtesy directly upon this Englishman, and
even the golden cup which she presented to him at Lord James Stewart's
marriage had perhaps less influence with Randolph than the bright eyes
of one of her 'four Maries' whom he was now pursuing. So he adds now
that Knox 'is so full of mistrust in all the Queen's doings, words, and
sayings, as though he were either of God's privy counsel, that know how
He had determined of her from the beginning, or that he knew the secrets
of her heart so well, that neither she did nor could have for ever one
good thought of God or of His true religion.' No criticism could be more
acute. And yet the research of later times has shown that Knox's
judgment, or information, as to what Mary of Scots was now doing, was
superior to that of all around him. This was the very close of 1562, and
in the next month of January she extended her Catholic correspondence,
which had hitherto been chiefly with the Guises and her Cardinal uncle,
by letters to the Pope.[109] On the 31st she writes Pius IV. assuring
him of her devotion to the Church, and that for it and for the
restoration to it of her kingdom she is ready to sacrifice her
life.[110] The bearer, too, of this secret missive was Cardinal
Granvelle, from Madrid, and deep at this moment in the persecuting
plans of Alva and his master Philip. For a new and greater danger was
now rising for Scotland. Hitherto the chief pretenders for the hand of
the Queen of Scots had been the Archduke Charles, and the Duke of Anjou.
(The new King of France was also supposed to be in love with her.) But
now the project was pressed of a marriage between her and Don Carlos,
t