400.
But though the queen was able to elude, for the present, the applications of parliament, the friends of the queen of Scots multiplied every day in England; and besides the Catholics, many of whom kept a treasonable correspondence with her, and were ready to rise at her command,[*] the court itself of Elizabeth was full of her avowed partisans.

The duke of Norfolk, the earls of Leicester, Pembroke, Bedford, Northumberland, Sir Nicholas Throgmorton, and most of the considerable men in England, except Cecil, seemed convinced of the necessity of declaring her the successor.

None but the more zealous Protestants adhered either to the countess of Hertford, or to her aunt, Eleanor, countess of Cumberland; and as the marriage of the former seemed liable to some objections, and had been declared invalid, men were alarmed, even on that side, with the prospect of new disputes concerning the succession.

Mary's behavior, also, so moderate towards the Protestants, and so gracious towards all men, had procured her universal respect;[**] and the public was willing to ascribe any imprudences into which she had fallen to her youth and inexperience.

But all these flattering prospects were blasted by the subsequent incidents; where her egregious indiscretions, shall I say, or atrocious crimes, threw her from the height of her prosperity and involved her in infamy and in ruin.
The earl of Bothwell was of a considerable family and power in Scotland; and though not distinguished by any talents either of a civil or military nature, he had made a figure in that party which opposed the greatness of the earl of Murray and the more rigid reformers.