He was consulted on all occasions; no favors could be obtained but by his intercession; all suitors were obliged to gain him by presents and flattery; and the man, insolent from his new exaltation, as well as rapacious in his acquisitions, soon drew on himself the hatred of the nobility and of the whole kingdom.[*] He had at first employed his credit to promote Darnley's marriage; and a firm friendship seemed to be established between them; but on the subsequent change of the queen's sentiments, it was easy for Henry's friends to persuade him that Rizzio was the real author of her indifference, and even to rouse in his mind jealousies of a more dangerous nature.

The favorite was of a disagreeable figure, but was not past his youth;[**] [8] and though the opinion of his criminal correspondence with Mary might seem of itself unreasonable, if not absurd, a suspicious husband could find no other means of accounting for that lavish and imprudent kindness with which she honored him.
* Keith, p.

282, 302, Crawford's Memoirs, p.5.

Spotswood, p.

193.
** See note H, at the end of the volume.
The rigid austerity of the ecclesiastics, who could admit of no freedoms, contributed to spread this opinion among the people; and as Rizzio was universally believed to be a pensionary of the pope's, and to be deeply engaged in all schemes against the Protestants, any story to his and Mary's disadvantage received an easy credit among the zealots of that communion.