Elizabeth I have too much power, but an heir produced by her favourite and Mary, Queen of Scots could potentially unite the two countries However, Dudley refused and Mary had no interest in marrying her cousin’s paramour Instead, Mary married for love, choosing Lord Henry Darnley Seeing this may have prompted Elizabeth to renew her interest in Dudley, which greatly upset the council, in particular the ambitious Lord Norfolk When the tension between Norfolk and Dudley grew too great, Elizabeth understood that she needed to assert her authority “I will have here but one mistress and no master,” she told Dudley It was both a political statement and a personal one The lack of a husband and heir was only made worse in 1566 when Mary gave birth to a son, James, but she was desperately unhappy Darnley was a violent, drunken husband: many believed he brutally murdered her secret lover, David Rizzio Darnley would meet his own nasty end a year later, when he was found strangled in the garden of a house Mary quickly married the Earl of Bothwell, the man who had allegedly murdered Darnley, and Scottish forces rose against her Imprisoned and forced to abdicate, she eventually fled to England Elizabeth agreed to give Mary shelter, but her arrival in the north had given Catholics a figurehead and rebellion brewed The northern Earls suggested that Norfolk should marry Mary: soon, the Northern Rebellion had begun As the rebel forces marched south, Elizabeth moved Mary to Coventry and mustered troops of her own The southern Earls rallied to her cause, which stunned the rebel forces, who began to retreat Elizabeth’s victory was quick and decisive, with 700 men being executed in a brutal display of power Norfolk was placed under arrest, but a lack of concrete evidence postponed his execution, until he was implicated in the Ridolfi plot, which aimed to make Spain's Philip II king Elizabeth ordered and rescinded Norfolk’s execution three times – a prime example of how indecisive she could be at times – before finally deciding that he simply had to die If Elizabeth’s position at home appeared shaky it was positively stable compared to how she was viewed abroad The Pope decreed that anyone who murdered the heretical English queen would be forgiven, a statement King Philip took to heart Not wanting to risk open war, Elizabeth found other ways to aggravate her enemies She quietly patronised the piratical exploits of John Hawkins and later his cousin Francis Drake In 1577, when he planned to travel to South America to raid Spanish gold, Elizabeth met Drake with Francis Walsingham, one of her ambassadors to France The cautious Cecil had to be kept in the dark, but she told Drake explicitly that she supported him: “I would gladly be revenged on the King of Spain for diverse injuries I have received.” Having sailed through the Straits of Magellan and captured a Spanish ship carrying up to £200,000 in gold, The return of Mary, Queen of Scots to Edinburgh Queen Elizabeth I knighting Francis Drake in 1581 vk.com/englishlibrary vk.com/bastau 103