The qualities of his mind corresponded to his high station:--beneficent, affable, generous, he had acquired the affections of the people; prudent, moderate, obsequious, he possessed, without giving her any jealousy, the good graces of his sovereign.

His grandfather and father had long been regarded as the leaders of the Catholics; and this hereditary attachment, joined to the alliance of blood, had procured him the friendship of the most considerable men of that party; but as he had been educated among the reformers, was sincerely devoted to their principles, and maintained that strict decorum and regularity of life by which the Protestants were at that time distinguished, he thereby enjoyed the rare felicity of being popular even with the most opposite factions.

The height of his prosperity alone was the source of his misfortunes, and engaged him in attempts from which his virtue and prudence would naturally have forever kept him at a distance.
Norfolk was at this time a widower; and being of a suitable age, his marriage with the queen of Scots had appeared so natural, that it occurred to several of his friends and those of that princess: but the first person who, after Secretary Lidington, opened the scheme to the duke, is said to have been the earl of Murray, before his departure for Scotland.[*] That nobleman set before Norfolk, both the advantage of composing the dissensions in Scotland by an alliance which would be so generally acceptable, and the prospect of reaping the succession of England; and in order to bind Norfolk's interest the faster with Mary's, he proposed that the duke's daughter should also espouse the young king of Scotland.

The previously obtaining of Elizabeth's consent was regarded, both by Murray and Norfolk, as a circumstance essential to the success of their project; and all terms being adjusted between them, Murray took care, by means of Sir Robert Melvil, to have the design communicated to the queen of Scots.

This princess replied, that the vexations which she had met with in her two last marriages, had made her more inclined to lead a single life; but she was determined to sacrifice her own inclinations to the public welfare: and therefore, as soon as she should be legally divorced from Bothwell, she would be determined by the opinion of her nobility and people in the choice of another husband.[**] * Lesley, p.