rival each laid on the other the blame of their bad success. Throgmorton'chafed and fumed,' 'detested and execrated himself!' and then accused his companion of having betrayed to the Queen-mother the secret of the second commission. Smith protested that he could not have betrayed what he did not know; but five years of 'practice' and conspiracy were ending in shame; and Sir Nicholas could not bear it and was unreasonable.

Sir Thomas Smith himself describes the scene.

"I tell the Queen-mother!' quoth I. "Why or how should I tell her?'

"Thou liest!' said Throgmorton, 'like a whoreson traitor as thou art!'

"A whoreson traitor! Nay, thou liest!' quoth I. 'I am as true to the Queen's majesty as thou, every day in the week, and have done and do her Highness as good service as thou.'

'Hereupon Sir Nicholas drew his dagger, and poured out such terms as his malicious and furious rage had in store; and called me ‘arrant knave,' 'beggarly knave,' 'traitor,' and other such injuries as came next to hand out of his good store.

'I drew my dagger also. Mr Somers stepped between us; but as he pressed with his dagger to come near me, I bade him stand back and not come no nearer to me, or I would cause him stand back, and give him such a mark as his Bedlam furious head did deserve.'1

To such a pass had two honest men been brought by

1 Smith to Cecil, April 13: French MSS. Rolls House.

Elizabeth's bargain-driving. Throgmorton felt the wound most deeply, as the person chiefly answerable for the French policy. He had offered to lie in prison for a year rather than the enemy should have their will.' To rouse the Queen to fierceness he had quoted the French proverb, that if she made herself a sheep the wolf would devour her; '1 and it ended in his being compelled at last to haggle like a cheating shopkeeper, and to fail.

The ruffled humours cooled at last, and when quiet was restored Smith proposed one more attempt to 'traffic;' but Sir Nicholas would not give Catherine any further triumph; Bourdin came, and the Peace of Troyes was arranged.

The terms were simple. Complicated claims and rights on both sides were reserved; the Treaty of Cambray was neither acknowledged nor declared void; the French hostages were to be released from England; the French Government undertook to pay for them the hundred and twenty thousand crowns; and free trade was to be allowed 'between the subjects of both sovereigns in all parts of their respective dominions.' 2 The unfortunate war was at an end. Elizabeth was obliged to bear graciously with the times; and her bitterness was reserved for the Prince of Condé. From him she charged Smith to demand instant repayment of the loan which she had advanced to him in his hour of difficulty. We mean not,' she said, 'to be so deluded as

1Si tu te fais ung mouton le loup te mangera.'

2 Peace of Troyes RYMER.

both to forbear our money and to have had at this time no friendship by his means in the conclusion of the peace.' 1

The peace itself came not an hour too soon. Scarcely was it signed than news arrived from Italy that the Sacred College had repented of their first honest answer to the English Catholics who had asked leave to attend the established services. It had been decided in secret council to permit Catholics in disguise to hold benefices in England, to take the oaths of allegiance, and to serve Holy Church in the camp of the enemy. 'Remission of sin to them and their heirs with annuities, honours, and promotions,' was offered to any cook, brewer, baker, vintner, physician, grocer, surgeon, or other who would make away with the Queen;' the curse of God and his vicar was threatened against all those 'who would not promote and assist by money or otherwise the pretences of the Queen of Scots to the English crown; '2 the Court of Rome, once illustrious as the citadel of the saints, was given over to Jesuitism and the devil; and the Papal fanatics in England began to weave their endless web of conspiracy-aiming amidst a thousand variations at the heart of Queen Elizabeth.

The ruffle with France sunk speedily into May.

calm. The ratifications were promptly ex

changed.

Lord Hunsdon went to France, taking with

1 Elizabeth to Sir T. Smith, May 2: French MSS. Rolls House

2 Report of E. Dennum, April 13, 1564: STRYPE'S Annals of Elizabeth, vol. i., part 2, p. 54.

VOL. VII.

12

him the Garter for the young King.1 M. de Gonor and the Bishop of Coutances came to England; and an attempt, not very successful, was made to show them in their reception that England was better defended than they supposed. In January, when a French invasion was thought likely, Archbishop Parker had reported 'Dover, Walmer, and Deal as forsaken and unregarded for any provision;' 'the people feeble, unarmed, and commonly discomforted towards the feared mischief.' The Lord Warden had gone to his post 'as naked without strength of men.' The Archbishop, living at Bekesbourne with the ex-Bishop of Ely and another Catholic at free prison, felt uneasy for his charge; and not sharing Throgmorton's confidence and believing that if the French landed they would carry all before them, wrote to Cecil to warn him of the danger' which if not looked to he feared would be irreparable.'

'If the enemy have an entry,' he said, 'as by great consideration of our weakness and their strength, of their vigilance and our dormitation and protraction, is like, the Queen's majesty shall never be able to leave to her successors that which she found delivered her by God's favourable hand.' 2

1 The ceremony was nearly spoilt | send back in haste for one which had by an odd accident. The Garter, belonged to King Edward or King though Hunsdon said it cost her Philip. 'These things,' he said, Majesty dear, was a poor and shabby 'touch her Majesty's honour.'— one. It had been made on the com- French MSS., May, 1564: Rolls mon pattern, as if for some burly House. English nobleman, and would not remain on the puny leg of Charles the Ninth. Hunsdon was obliged to

2 Parker to Cecil, January 20 and February 6, 1564: Lansdowne MSS.

The peril had passed over; and for fear the French ambassadors might carry back too tempting a report of the defencelessness of the coast, Lord Abergavenny was directed as if to do them honour-to call under arms

the gentlemen of the south-eastern counties. June. The result not being particularly successful, the Archbishop invited De Gonor and the Bishop of Coutances to Bekesbourne, and in a little vain brag, perhaps infirmity,' showed them his well-furnished armoury, hoping that his guests would infer that if a prelate 'had regard of such provisions others had more care thereabout.'

, 1

The thin disguise would have availed little had there been a real desire for the continuance of the war. In the unprotected shores, the open breezy downs, the scattered and weakly-armed population, they observed the facility of invasion, and remarked upon it plainly. But Catherine de Medici had no interest in Mary Stuart and no desire to injure Elizabeth. Mary Stuart's friends were rather at Madrid than at Paris; and the French ministers were more curious of the religious condition of England than of its military defences.

Their visit to Bekesbourne therefore gave occasion for the Archbishop and his visitors to compare ecclesiastical notes. The Bishop of Coutances expressed the unexpected pleasure which it had given him to find that there was so much reverence about the sacraments,' 'that music was still permitted in the quires,'

1 Parker to Cecil, June 3: Domestic MSS. Elizabeth, vol. xxxiii.