Whilst this matter was being discussed by Maitland and the Bishop and the Spanish partisans in England, the news of the untoward adventure of Mary Stuart with Chastelard arrived in London. Mary said it was a plot of the Queen-mother to discredit her; but the old Bishop was no less anxious than before to urge his master to seize such an opportunity as that offered by the proposed marriage. But Philip was slow. His hands were full and his coffers were empty as usual, and whilst he was asking for pledges and guarantees from the Scots and the English Catholics, the opportunity passed. Philip, in appearance at all events, accepted the suggestion, in alarm lest a refusal might lead to a marriage between Mary and the boy-King of France; for, as he says, “I well bear in mind the anxiety I underwent from King Francis when he was married to this Queen, and I am sure that if he had lived we could not have avoided war, on the ground of my protection of the Queen of England, whose country he would have invaded.”[187] But whilst Philip was pondering—and it must be conceded that this time he had much reason for hesitation—others were acting. When Lethington came back from France, on his way through London to Scotland, he saw the Spanish Bishop again. He found that matters had not progressed, and was disheartened. Elizabeth threatened his mistress with her undying enmity if she married a member of the House of Austria, and Cecil persuaded him that the Queen might yet appoint Mary her heir if she married to her liking. Lady Margaret, also, was now ostentatiously favoured by the Queen, and Maitland returned to Scotland convinced that it would be unsafe to look elsewhere than to England for support, and that, after all, the best solution of his country’s difficulties would be the marriage of Mary and Darnley under Elizabeth’s patronage. This certainly was the impression that the English Government wished him to convey, for whilst it lasted it would check more ambitious schemes which would be dangerous to England.
So far Cecil’s policy, though often thwarted by the Queen’s waywardness and Dudley’s ambition, had been in the main successful. The French had been kept out of Scotland, the Catholics in England had been divided and discouraged, whilst waverers were conciliated; the Anglican Church was more firmly established, and Philip had been kept more or less friendly, out of fear of a league of Protestants on the one hand and of French influence in England on the other. Nor was the indefatigable Secretary’s effort confined to foreign affairs. The strengthening of the Queen’s navy and the building of merchantmen continued without intermission. Camden says that in consequence of this activity there were now (1562) 20,000 fighting men ready for sea service alone. All the fortresses were put into order for defence, and the shortcomings of material and system demonstrated in the Scottish campaign were remedied. The ample correspondence on these points in the Hatfield Papers are all endorsed, annotated, or drafted in Sir William Cecil’s own hand, and no detail seems to have escaped him.[188]