373.
Sir Thomas Randolph was sent by the queen to intercede in favor of Morton; and that ambassador, not content with discharging this duty of his function, engaged, by his persuasion, the earls of Argyle, Montrose, Angus, Marre, and Glencairne, to enter into a confederacy for protecting, even by force of arms, the life of the prisoner.

The more to overawe that nobleman's enemies, Elizabeth ordered forces to be assembled on the borders of England; but this expedient served only to hasten his sentence and execution.

Morton died with that constancy and resolution which had attended him through all the various events of his life; and left a reputation which was less disputed with regard to abilities than probity and virtue.

But this conclusion of the scene happened not till the subsequent year.
Elizabeth was, during this period, extremely anxious on account of every revolution in Scotland; both because that country alone, not being separated from England by sea, and bordering on all the Catholic and malecontent counties, afforded her enemies a safe and easy method of attacking her; and because she was sensible that Mary, thinking herself abandoned by the French monarch, had been engaged by the Guises to have recourse to the powerful protection of Philip, who, though he had not yet come to an open rupture with the queen, was every day, both by the injuries which he committed and suffered, more exasperated against her.
That he might retaliate the assistance which she gave to his rebels in the Low Countries, he had sent, under the name of the pope; a body of seven hundred Spaniards and Italians into Ireland; where the inhabitants, always turbulent, and discontented with the English government, were now more alienated by religious prejudices, and were ready to join every invader.

The Spanish general, San Josepho, built a fort in Kerry; and being there besieged by the earl of Ormond, president of Munster, who was soon after joined by Lord Gray, the deputy, he made a weak and cowardly defence.