period united
against her; she was compelled to sign a deed of abdication in favor of
her son, who was crowned king in July 1567. The earl of Murray was
declared regent: and a parliament assembled about the close of the year
confirmed all these acts of the confederate lords, and sanctioned the
detention of the deposed queen in a captivity of which none could then
foresee the termination. Elizabeth ordered her ambassador to abstain
from countenancing by his presence the coronation of the king of Scots,
and she continued to negotiate for the restoration of Mary: but her
ministers strongly represented to her the danger of driving the lords,
by a further display of her indignation at their proceedings, into a
confederacy with France; and Throgmorton, her ambassador in Scotland,
urged her to treat with them to deliver their young king into her
hands, in order to his being educated in England.

Some proposal of this nature she accordingly made: but the lords, whom
former experience had rendered suspicious of her dealings, absolutely
refused to give up their prince without the pledge of a recognition of
his right of succession to the English throne; and Elizabeth, reluctant
as ever to come to a declaration on this point, reluctant also to desert
entirely the interests of Mary, with whose remaining adherents she still
maintained a secret intercourse, seems to have abstained for some time
from any very active interference in the perplexed affairs of the
neighbour kingdom.

The recent occurrences in Scotland had procured Elizabeth some respite
from the importunities of her subjects relative to the succession; but
it was not the less necessary for her to take some steps in discharge of
her promise respecting marriage. Accordingly the earl of Sussex, in this
cause a negotiator no less zealous than able, was dispatched in solemn
embassy to Vienna, to congratulate the emperor Maximilian on his
coronation, and at the same time to treat with his brother the archduke
Charles respecting his long agitated marriage with the queen. Two
obstacles were to be surmounted,--the attachment of the archduke to the
catholic faith, and the repugnance of Elizabeth to enter into
engagements with a prince whose person was unknown to her. Both are
attempted to be obviated in two extant letters from the ambassador to
the queen, which at the same time so well display the manly spirit of
the writer, and present details so interesting, that it would be an