Queen Mary’s secretary of state William Maitland…
February 1565 CE
Queen Mary’s secretary of state William Maitland has a hand in the unsuccessful proposals of a marriage between Mary and Robert Dudley, earl of Leicester.
Nineteen-year-old Henry Stewart, Lord Darnley, the son of Matthew, fourth earl of Lennox, meanwhile begins in February 1565 to court the widowed twenty-two-year-old queen, who is his first cousin.
Thomas Randolph, the English ambassador to Scotland, is in early 1565 told by the Scottish queen that she would accept the proposal.
To his amazement, Dudley is not to be moved to comply: But a man of that nature I never found any ... he whom I go about to make as happy as ever was any, to put him in possession of a kingdom, to lay in his naked arms a most fair ... lady ... nothing regardeth the good that shall ensue unto him thereby ... but so uncertainly dealeth that I know not where to find him.
Dudley had indeed made it clear to the Scots at the beginning that he was not a candidate for Mary's hand and forthwith has behaved with passive resistance.
He also works in the interest of Lord Darnley, Mary's eventual choice of husband.
Elizabeth herself had wavered as to declaring Mary her heir; still, she finally tells the Spanish ambassador that the proposal fell through because the Earl of Leicester had refused to cooperate.
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