The queen replied, that Mary had once discovered her intention not to wait for the succession, but had openly, without ceremony or reserve, assumed the title of Queen of England, and had pretended a superior right to her throne and kingdom: that though her ambassadors and those of her husband, the French king, had signed a treaty, in which they renounced that claim, and promised satisfaction for so great an indignity, she was so intoxicated with this imaginary right, that she had rejected the most earnest solicitations, and even, as some endeavored to persuade her, had incurred some danger, in crossing the seas, rather than ratify that equitable treaty: that her partisans every where had still the assurance to insist on her title, and had presumed to talk of her own birth as illegitimate: that while affairs were on this footing; while a claim thus openly made, so far from being openly renounced, was only suspended till a more favorable opportunity; it would in her be the most egregious imprudence to fortify the hands of a pretender to her crown by declaring her the successor: that no expedient could be worse imagined for cementing friendship than such a declaration; and kings were often found to bear no good will to their successors, even though their own children; much more when the connection was less intimate, and when such cause of disgust and jealousy had already been given, and indeed was still continued, on the part of Mary: that though she was willing, from the amity which she bore her kinswoman, to ascribe her former pretensions to the advice of others, by whose direction she was then governed, her present refusal to relinquish them could proceed only from her own prepossessions, and was a proof that she still harbored some dangerous designs against her: that it was the nature of all men to be disgusted with the present, to entertain flattering views of futurity, to think their services ill rewarded, to expect a better recompense from the successor; and she should esteem herself scarcely half a sovereign over the English, if they saw her declare her heir, and arm her rival with authority against her own repose and safety: that she knew the inconstant nature of the people; she was acquainted with the present divisions in religion; she was not ignorant that the same party, which expected greater favor during the reign of Mary, did also imagine that the title of that princess was superior to her own: that for her part, whatever claims were advanced, she was determined to live and die queen of England; and after her death it was the business of others to examine who had the best pretensions, either by the laws or by right of blood, to the succession: that she hoped the claim of the queen of Scots would then be found solid; and, considering the injury which she herself had received, it was sufficient indulgence if she promised, in the mean time, to do nothing which might in any respect weaken or invalidate it: and that Mary, if her title were really preferable--a point which, for her own part, she had never inquired into--possessed all advantages above her rivals; who, destitute both of present power and of all support by friends, would only expose themselves to inevitable ruin, by advancing any weak, or even doubtful pretensions.[*] These views of the queen were so prudent and judicious, that there was no likelihood of her ever departing from them: but that she might put the matter to a fuller proof, she offered to explain the words of the treaty of Edinburgh, so as to leave no suspicion of their excluding Mary's right of succession;[**] and in this form she again required her to ratify that treaty.

Matters at last came to this issue, that Mary agreed to the proposal, and offered to renounce all present pretensions to the crown of England, provided Elizabeth would agree to declare her the successor.[***] But such was the jealous character of this latter princess, that she never would consent to strengthen the interest and authority of any claimant by fixing the succession; much less would she make this concession in favor of a rival queen, who possessed such plausible pretensions for the present, and who, though she might verbally renounce them, could easily resume her claim on the first opportunity.
* Buchanan, lib.xvii.c.

14-17.

Camden, p.385.

Spotswood, p.