ord James (now Earl of Mar), on whom Mary
leaned. The new Earl of Mar was furtively created Earl of Murray and
enjoyed the gift after the overthrow of Huntly.

In January 1562 Mary asked for an interview with Elizabeth. Certainly
Lethington hoped that Elizabeth "would be able to do much with Mary in
religion," meaning that, if Mary's claims to succeed Elizabeth were
granted, she might turn Anglican. The request for a meeting, dallied
with but never granted, occupied diplomatists, while, at home, Arran
(March 31) accused Bothwell of training him into a plot to seize Mary's
person. Arran probably told truth, but he now went mad; Bothwell was
imprisoned in the castle till his escape to England in August 1562.
Lethington, in June, was negotiating for Mary's interview with Elizabeth;
Knox bitterly opposed it; the preachers feared that the queen would turn
Anglican, and bishops might be let loose in Scotland. The masques for
Mary's reception were actually being organised, when, in July, Elizabeth,
on the pretext of persecutions by the Guises in France, broke off the
negotiations.

The rest of the year was occupied by an affair of which the origins are
obscure. Mary, with her brother and Lethington, made a progress into the
north, were affronted by and attacked Huntly, who died suddenly (October
28) at the fight of Corrichie; seized a son of his, who was executed
(November 2), and spoiled his castle which contained much of the property
of the Church of Aberdeen. Mary's motives for destroying her chief
Catholic subject are not certainly known. Her brother, Lord James, in
February made Earl of Mar, now received the lands and title of Earl of
Murray. At some date in this year Knox preached against Mary because she
gave a dance. He chose to connect her dance with some attack on the
Huguenots in France. According to 'The Book of Discipline' he should
have remonstrated privately, as Mary told him. The dates are
inextricable. (See my 'John Knox and the Reformation,' pp. 215-218.)
Till the spring of 1565 the main business was the question of the queen's
marriage. This continued to divide the ruling Protestant nobles from the
preachers. Knox dreaded an alliance with Spain, a marriage with Don
Carlos. But Elizabeth, to waste time, offered Mary the hand of Lord
Robert Dudley (Leicester), and, strange as it appears, Mary would
probably have accepted him, as late as 1565, for Elizabeth let it be
understood that to marry a