she spoke of her conscience; Knox said that it was unenlightened.
Lethington wished that he would "deal more gently with a young princess
unpersuaded." There were three or four later interviews, but Knox,
strengthened by a marriage with a girl of sixteen, daughter of Lord
Ochiltree, a Stewart, was proof against the queen's fascination. In
spite of insults to her faith offered even at pageants of welcome, Mary
kept her temper, and, for long, cast in her lot with Lethington and her
brother, whose hope was to reconcile her with Elizabeth.

The Court was gay with riotous young French nobles, well mated with
Bothwell, who, though a Protestant, had sided with Mary of Guise during
the brawls of 1559. He was now a man of twenty-seven, profligate,
reckless, a conqueror of hearts, a speaker of French, a ruffian, and well
educated.

In December it was arranged that the old bishops and other high clerics
should keep two-thirds of their revenues, the other third to be divided
between the preachers and the queen, "between God and the devil," says
Knox. Thenceforth there was a rift between the preachers and the
politicians, Lethington and Lord James (now Earl of Mar), on whom Mary
leaned. The new Earl of Mar was furtively created Earl of Murray and
enjoyed the gift after the overthrow of Huntly.

In January 1562 Mary asked for an interview with Elizabeth. Certainly
Lethington hoped that Elizabeth "would be able to do much with Mary in
religion," meaning that, if Mary's claims to succeed Elizabeth were
granted, she might turn Anglican. The request for a meeting, dallied
with but never granted, occupied diplomatists, while, at home, Arran
(March 31) accused Bothwell of training him into a plot to seize Mary's
person. Arran probably told truth, but he now went mad; Bothwell was