Why didn’t Queen Elizabeth I ever meet Mary Queen of Scotts when she gave her “refuge” in England?

To treat Mary as anything other than a threat to the peace of the country would have been a foolish mistake on Elizabeth's part. She well knew that Mary would have the backing of both the Pope and of Spain, and the last thing a smart person would have done would have been to formally recognize Mary as an "equal" and deserving of respect & honor due another royal on equal footing. Elizabeth was smart and had great advisors. Mary was a fool....even with all the power of the Vatican & of Spain behind her, she was too dumb to be able to take over & made many, many mistakes. England was the big winner....it got Elizabeth for a long, long time...and is the country it is now largely due to her wisdom and strength of will as she got through those first few dangerous years of her reign. Mary was a fool and the pawn of other fools.... and got what was coming to her....in spades!

Elizabeth was probably very wary of Mary. Mary was involved in many plots to assassinate Elizabeth. Mary had strong ties to the English throne and Elizabeth knew this. Elizabeth always lived in fear that someone would either kill her or steal her throne.

I think Elizabeth wanted to keep her distance for diplomatic reasons. She did not want to be seen to be getting too friendly with Mary, because she did not wish to offend the Scots.

I guess you'd have to ask Elizabeth to kn w the answer. The recorded history we have is most likely missing loads of details. We cna really only guess what happened based on what was recorded at the time. We would also have to take into account, that even historians write from their point of view, and we don't have a full knowledge of the politics and practices of the time. So we can only base our opinion of history, on opinions of others and their view points. Sometimes things seem so simple, but really, there are so many factors to take into consideration, and I'm sure there are many factors that we do not know of to explain why she would not have met with her. For all we know, she did in secret. Just as now, there was so much scheming and planning in politics. So many things done or not done for so many different reasons. It made it a lot more complicated because land, domination, and lives were at stake with every choice.

Mary's behavior had been truly scandalous, and Elizabeth couldn't risk her reputation with the rest of Christian Europe by seeming to endorse or approve of it. Mary was suspected of complicity in the plot that killed her young husband, Lord Darnley, the father of James VI of Scotland, who became James I of England, founder of the Stuart dynasty, after Elizabeth's death. She also had married the Earl of Bothwell, who was known to have been involved in the plot to murder Darnley. Some say he kidnapped and raped her. She may have married him to hide her shame, or she may have been less "raped" and more "ravished" and consented to the marriage. She had a history of making rash decisions about men, based on her passion for them, and of having little judgement about their true character. Elizabeth felt obligated to help Mary, as she was her cousin, but also because Mary was a fellow anointed Queen Regnant (unheard of in those days) who had been, Elizabeth felt, unjustly deprived of her crown by scheming, ruthless men. But she also had to protect her reputation. Also, after a while, it became clear that Mary was scheming against the life of Elizabeth, and so Elizabeth's refusal to meet her may have been based on personal security concerns, too. Eventually, Elizabeth had to execute Mary for trying to overthrow and murder her.