Cecil’s hand can be traced clearly in all these activities, for they struck indirectly at his enemies; but a bolder step in the same direction taken by Parliament itself can only be surmised as being prompted by him. Dudley had for months been gaining friends for the candidature of the Earl of Huntingdon as heir to the crown, whilst the Catholics were divided on the claims of Mary Stuart and Darnley. Cecil was determined, if possible, to prevent the success of either of them, and desired to adhere to the Parliamentary title of Lady Catharine[184] (Countess of Hertford). The House of Commons was mainly Protestant, and under the influence of Cecil; and it was agreed that deputations of both Houses should petition the Queen either to fix the succession or else to marry, the latter alternative being probably added out of politeness. The Queen received the deputations very ungraciously. She turned her back on the Commons, and for a long time sent no answer at all. On an address being presented to the Council begging them to remind her, she sent an answer by Cecil and Rogers to the effect that “she doubted not the grave heads of this House did right well consider that she forgot not the suit of this House for the succession, the matter being so weighty; nor could forget it; but she willed the young heads to take example of their elders.” To the Lords she was more outspoken. She asked them whether they thought what they saw on her face were wrinkles. They were nothing of the sort, but pockmarks, and she was not so old yet that she had lost hope of having children of her own to succeed her.[185] This was a rebuff to Cecil’s policy; but only what might have been expected from the Queen, whose principal care was to sustain herself without concerning herself greatly as to what came after her; whereas the Secretary was doubtless thinking of what would become of himself and the Protestant party if she died. For Mary Stuart, and even her Protestant Councillors, he knew, were busy intriguing for the succession, and her claims were powerfully supported, even in England.
Maitland of Lethington came to London during the sitting of Parliament to forward his mistress’s claims. He found Cecil now against the solution which he had formerly favoured, namely, the abandonment of Mary’s present claims in exchange for the reversion, failing Elizabeth and her descendants. Cecil was more distrustful of the French than ever; for the defection of Condé had turned all arms against the English in Havre, and he knew that Cardinal Lorraine was still untiring in his planning of the Austrian match for Mary, whilst the Protestants of France and Germany watched unmoved the isolation and embarrassment of England. Maitland therefore soon persuaded himself that his mistress had not much more to hope for now from the dominant party in England than from Elizabeth herself. Mary was convinced that both Catharine de Medici and the English Queen wished to force her into an unworthy Protestant marriage with a subject, in order to injure her prestige with English Catholics and decrease the power of the Guises.[186] Maitland consequently cast his eyes to another quarter. Mary was determined to fight for the English succession, if she could not get it by fair means; and with this end she wanted a consort strong enough to force her claims, which her uncle’s candidate, the Archduke Charles, could not do. She and Maitland accordingly threw over the Guises, who did not wish their niece to marry a prince strong enough to exclude _them_, and boldly proposed a marriage with Philip’s heir, Don Carlos. Maitland went one night secretly to the Bishop of Aquila in London, and cautiously opened the negotiation. The Queen of Scots, he said, was determined never to marry a Protestant, even if he owned half the world, nor would she accept a husband from the hands of the Queen of England. The French and English Queens were almost equally against her, the Duke of Guise was dead, the Archduke Charles was not strong enough to help her; would Philip consent to a marriage with his son?