caution represented to her in formidable colors the danger of restoring
to liberty one whom she had already offended beyond forgiveness. She
laid Mary's letter before her privy-council; and these confidential
advisers, after wisely and uprightly deciding that it would be
inconsistent with the honor and safety of the queen and her government
to undertake the restoration of the queen of Scots, were induced to add,
that it would also be unsafe to permit her departure out of the kingdom,
and that the inquiry into her conduct ought to be pursued.

In spite of her remonstrances, Mary was immediately removed to
Bolton-castle in Yorkshire, a seat of lord Scrope's; her communications
with her own country were cut off; her confinement was rendered more
strict; and by secret promises from Elizabeth of finally causing her to
be restored to her throne under certain limitations, she was led to
renew her consent to the trial of her cause in England, and to engage
herself to name commissioners to confer with those of the regent and of
Elizabeth at York.

It would be foreign from the purpose of the present work to engage in a
regular narrative of the celebrated proceedings begun soon after at the
city last mentioned, and ended at Westminster: some remarkable
circumstances illustrative of the character of the English princess, or
connected with the fate of her principal noble, will however be related
hereafter, as well as their final result;--at present other subjects
claim attention.

An embassy arrived in London in 1567, from Ivan Basilowitz czar of
Muscovy, the second which had been addressed to an English sovereign
from that country, plunged as yet in barbarous ignorance, and far from
anticipating the day when it should assume a distinguished station in
the system of civilized Europe.

It was by a bold and extraordinary enterprise that the barrier of the
Frozen Sea had been burst, and a channel of communication opened between
this country and Russia by means of which an intercourse highly
beneficial to both nations was now begun: the leading circumstances were
the following.

During the reign of Henry VII., just after the unparalleled achievement
of Columbus had rendered voyages of discovery the ruling passion of
Europe, a Venetian pilot, named Cabot, who had resided long in Bristol,
obtained from this monarch for himself and his sons a patent for making
discoveries and conquests in unknown regions. By this navigator and his