ceive them as favours from the apostolicall see. But after this his too late compliance had cast him into their condition that have unadvisedly out stood the market, he, in no shallower malice then dispaire, cast not only the person of the queene, but the whole nation under a bottomlesse interdict; which was thundered out at Rome, and hung like a squib by one Felton upon the bishop of London's gate, where, after the execution of the party that did it, all other malignancy ceased, but what fell upon his owne creatures, who till then were not forbidden to communicate (in publique service) with the church of England, and so harder to be discovered, then since this open rupture. Nor was the queene of Scots (whose tragicall history is to be found every where written at large) more obliged to her catholick father, through whose incouragement she was tempted to assume the title and armes of England very unseasonably during her husbands sicknesse, and before her owne kingdome was settled, or any considerable

force manifested in her favour. It not pleasing France it selfe (of whose king she was after the relict) to see all Britanny united under one crowne: and from whence dropped so much of the venome of jealousy into the hearts of Elizabeth and her counsell, as no meanes was left unsought likely to distresse her, especially by the puritan party, whose safety lay in her destruction, and who shunned no undecency carrying any probability of being instrumentall in her remove; forgetting that the persons of princes have been thought by all wise men too sacred to have any hand or justice appeare in their death but Gods. Now, as these studied all waies to destroy her, so there was as considerable a faction in the English court that desired her preservation, the cause not only that held her long captive (many wishing her restraint that abhorred her execution), but deterred all who had either estate or honour to loose, from attempting in their owne person, or conniving at any other likely to be so wicked as

to make her away: though our queene may be found in many of her letters intimating so much to such as kept her, who were so wise as not to understand what was meant, else they might have fallen into the fortune of Davison, who unadvisedly ventering between the honour and safety of his prince, was ground to nothing betwixt the fury of one party and shame of the other. Thus,

I

because no body either would or durst do it alone, the reproach was intayled upon the whole nation, by the apparition of a mimical and counterfeit justice: reason of state, in such nice points as these, being so contrary to that in the schooles, as it is most safe and honourable when it hath the

Pawlet and Drury obstinately resisted every hint, although several expressive letters were written upon the subject. Davison's history is well known. He was the under-secretary who dispatched the warrant for executing Mary, and was disgraced as having put it into execution without authority. Abundance of proof upon both points, and sufficient to convict Elizabeth of the most exquisite and unprincipled hypocrisy in the whole affair, may be found under the article DavySON, in the Biographia Britannica.

Nor

least authority to youch it. And if the ac tors of this tragedy had not found more security from the long reigne of Elizabeth, then the applause they had from Scotland was able to have afforded them upon the next change, I believe so many of their race had not sate in the House of Lords. was the amorous rather then traiterous blood of the duke of Norfolke, spilt on the scaffold for her sake, more consonant to justice or the affections of her subjects, though quietly indured, as a number of other particulars which happened in her time, that were not able to make answer or give a perfect account, some to justice, others to discretion. This proves, that the common people are like rivers, which do seldome grow so impetuous as to transcend the banks of obedience, but upon the overflowing of an epidemicall and illegall oppression.

5. Not to wade any farther in this, the greatest blur I find objected to her honour, or prudence of those assisted at the helme, whose miscarriage lay more in the cere

mony then substance of the thing, no lesse gratefull to the present affayres of the protestants in Scotland then England: it being the policy of those times, as I believe it ought to be of these, to render alliance no lesse acceptable to friends, then terrible to enimies, through a seasonable supply of men and mony before delay (the betrayer of all confederations) hath rendered affayres desperate not omitted by her, who by sea and land made it her constant practice to annoy the Spaniard through the conduct of those sonnes of Neptune, Drake, Furbusher, Cavendish, Sir Walter Rawly, &c. and in that successful first expedition to Cales, under the command of Essex, (a man of a contexture not only suitable to a camp but gratefull to ladies,) by which the catholick king was so unexpectedly alarumed, as Cardinall D'Ossat ownes it for the most universall opinion, that the whole nation, or a great part of it, might have been gained, had he prosecuted his immediate fortune to the extent of their feares; a number of the Mo