The queen of Scots, destitute of all force, possessing a narrow revenue, surrounded with a factious turbulent nobility, a bigotted people, and insolent ecclesiastics, soon found, that her only expedient for maintaining tranquillity was to preserve a good correspondence with[91] Elizabeth, who, by former connexions and services, had acquired such authority over all these ranks of men. Soon after her arrival in Scotland, secretary Lidington was sent to London, in order to pay her compliments to the queen, and express her desire of friendship and a good correspondence; and he received a commission from her, as well as from the nobility of Scotland, to demand, as a means of cementing this friendship, that Mary should, by act of parliament or by proclamation (for the difference between these securities was not then deemed very considerable) be declared successor to the crown. No request could be more unreasonable, or made at a more improper juncture. The queen replied, that Mary had once discovered her intention not to wait for the succession, but had openly, without ceremony or reserve, assumed the title of queen of England, and had pretended a superior right to her throne and kingdom: That though her ambassadors, and those of her husband, the French king, had signed a treaty, in which they renounced that claim, and promised satisfaction for so great an indignity, she was so intoxicated with this imaginary right, that she had rejected the most earnest solicitations, and even, as some endeavoured to persuade her, had incurred some danger in crossing the seas, rather than ratify that equitable treaty: That her partizans every where had still the assurance to insist on her title, and had presumed to talk of her own birth as illegitimate: That while affairs were on this footing; while a claim thus openly made, so far from being openly renounced, was only suspended till a more favourable opportunity, it would in her be the most egregious imprudence to fortify the hands of a pretender to her crown, by declaring her the successor: That no expedient could be worse imagined for cementing friendship than such a declaration; and kings were often found to bear no good will to their successors, even though their own children; much more when the connexion was less intimate, and when such cause of disgust and jealousy had already been given, and indeed was still continued, on the part of Mary: That though she was willing, from the amity which she bore her kinswoman, to ascribe her former pretensions to the advice of others, by whose direction she was then governed; her present refusal to relinquish them could proceed only from her own prepossessions, and was a proof that she still harboured some dangerous designs against her: That it was the nature of all men to be disgusted with the present, to entertain flattering views of futurity, to think their services ill rewarded, to expect a better recompence from the successor; and she should esteem herself scarcely half a sovereign over the English, if they saw her declare her heir, and arm her rival with authority against her own repose and safety: That she knew the inconstant nature of the people; she was acquainted with the present divisions in religion; she was not ignorant, that the same party, which expected greater favour during the reign of Mary, did also imagine, that the title of that princess was superior to her own: That for her part, whatever claims were advanced, she was determined to live and die queen of England; and after her death, it was the business of others to examine who had the best pretensions, either by the laws or by right of blood, to the succession: That she hoped the claim of the queen of Scots would then be found solid; and considering the injury, which she herself had received, it was sufficient indulgence, if she promised, in the mean time, to do nothing which might, in any respect, weaken or invalidate it: And that Mary, if her title were really preferable, a point, which, for her own part, she had never enquired into, possessed all advantages above her rivals; who, destitute both of present power, and of all support by friends, would only expose themselves to inevitable ruin, by advancing any weak, or even doubtful pretensions[92].