At the instance of Randolph the Scottish Lords of the Congregation had commissioned James Stuart, Mary’s natural brother, afterwards Earl of Murray, who was already in English pay, to visit his sister in France, and influence her to return to Scotland pledged to the treaty of Edinburgh, and to place herself in the hands of the Protestant party. For the moment the Guises in France were in disgrace, and plotting for their own advancement, so that it suited them to appear to acquiesce in an arrangement which promised that their niece should take possession of her kingdom without disturbance. James Stuart, carefully coached by Throgmorton, went back to London with the assurance that all was well.[142] Mundt, in Germany, had drawn the league closer between England and the Princes; Bedford in France had completed a cordial arrangement with Vendôme, Coligny, and the Protestants; Philip’s Netherlands were in seething discontent, his coffers were empty and he was in a death grapple with the Turk for the mastery of the Mediterranean. There was nothing for England to fear, therefore. Circumstances and Cecil’s diplomacy had placed once more all the cards into his hands, and again he could go forward on a straight course.
The pretext for a change was given by the secret presence of a papal nuncio in Ireland. English Catholics were suddenly proceeded against all over the country for attending mass. Sir Edward Waldegrave and other ex-members of Mary’s Council were thrown into the Tower; the Pope’s legate, who was hurrying with all sorts of concessions, and an invitation to Elizabeth to send envoys to the Council of Trent, was refused admittance into England; and the old Bishop of Aquila found once more that Cecil had outwitted him. There were no more conciliatory religious discussions or amiable attentions; on the contrary, the Ambassador, to his intense indignation, was accused of taking part in plots against the Queen, and found himself slighted on all sides. A great outcry took place that a conspiracy of Catholics had been discovered to poison the Queen, the rumour in all probability being part of the general plan to weaken and discredit the Catholic party; and Cecil himself drew up a paper, still extant,[143] urging her Majesty not to place any apparel next her skin until it had been carefully examined, that no perfume should be inhaled by her which came from a stranger, that no food should be consumed by her unless it was dressed by her own cooks, that twice a week she should take some _contra pestum_, that the back doors of her apartments should be strictly guarded, and so forth. Whether Cecil was really apprehensive of danger to the Queen at the time is uncertain; but this general change of attitude towards the Catholics in less than four months suspiciously coincided with the successful consolidation of the Protestants throughout Europe, and the paralysation for harm both of Spain and France in the matter of Mary Stuart.