year, were carried on under the stimulus of the excitement. The result was the return of a House of Commons violently Puritan; and those who were most anxious to prevent the recognition of the Queen of Scots. found themselves opportunely strengthened by the premature eagerness with which her claims had been pressed.

2

Maitland's intended mission to London had been postponed till the meeting; but meanwhile Sir William Cecil had ominously allowed all correspondence between them to cease;1 and Randolph, on the 5th of 1563. January, wrote from Edinburgh of the general January. fear and uneasiness that 'things would be wrought in the approaching Parliament which would give little pleasure in Scotland." Diplomacy however still continued its efforts. Notwithstanding the rupture with the Guises, the admission of Mary Stuart's right was still played off before Elizabeth as a condition on which France might be pacified and Calais restored and there was always a fear that Elizabeth might turn back upon her steps and listen. To end the crisis, Sir Thomas Smith advised her to throw six thousand men, some moonlight night, on the Calais sands. The garrison had been withdrawn after the battle of Dreux to reinforce the Catholic army, and not two hundred men were left to defend the still incomplete fortifications. But Eliza

1 Maitland to Cecil, January 3: | Pale. Before the expulsion of the Scotch MSS. Rolls House.

2 Randolph to Cecil: MS. Ibid. 3 Sir T. Smith to Elizabeth,

January 2: FORBES, vol. ii. The beneficial effects of the French conquest had already been felt in the

English it was almost a desert. Sir Thomas Smith held out as an inducement for its recovery, that it had become the plentifullest country in all France.'

beth was as incapable as Philip of a sudden movement, and she had no desire to exchange her quarrel with the Guises-which after all might be peaceably composed— for a declared war with a united France. She knew that she had not deserved the confidence of the Huguenots, and she had already reason to fear that they might turn against her.

The day after the battle of Dreux, Throgmorton, unable to rejoin the Admiral, was brought in as a prisoner into the Catholic camp. The Duke of Guise sent for him, and after a long and conciliatory conversation on the state of France, spoke deprecatingly of the injustice of Elizabeth's suspicions of himself and his family, and indicated with some distinctness that if she would withdraw from Havre Calais should be given up to her.1

Elizabeth, catching at an intimation which fell in with her private wishes, replied with a promise 'that nothing should be done in Parliament to the displeasure of the Queen of Scots.' Mary Stuart had recovered credit by her expedition to the north; and her confidence in Elizabeth's weakness again revived: not indeed that Elizabeth was really either weak or blind, but in constitutional irresolution she was for ever casting her eye over her shoulder, with the singular and happy effect of

1 'If they cannot accord among | way MSS. themselves, then I perceive they mind to treat with you favourably, and I believe to satisfy your Majesty about Calais, provided that from henceforth you do no more aid the Prince and the rebels.'-Throgmorton to Elizabeth, January 3: Con

'These men have two strings to their bow-to accord with the Prince and to accord with her Majesty also; but not with both at once to both's satisfactions.' -Throgmorton to Cecil, January 3: FORBES, vol. ii.

keeping the Catholics perpetually deluded with false expectations, and of amusing them with hopes of a change which never came.

Her resolution about the Scottish succession promised a stormy and uneasy session; and Cecil before its commencement, still uncertain how far he could depend upon her, made another effort to rid the Court of de Quadra. The Spanish ambassador was suspected without reason of having encouraged the Poles. He was known to have urged Philip to violence, and to be the secret support and stay of the disaffected in England and Ireland. Confident in the expected insurrection of the Low Countries, Cecil was not unwilling to risk an open rupture with Spain, which would force Elizabeth once for all on the Protestant side.

A few days before Parliament was to meet, an Italian Calvinist, in the train of the Vidame of Chartres, was passing Durham Place when a stranger, who was lounging at the gate, drew a pistol and fired at him. The ball passed through the Italian's cap and wounded an Englishman behind him. The assassin darted into the house with a crowd at his heels; and the Bishop, knowing nothing of him, but knowing the Italian to be a heretic, bade his servants open the water gate. The fugitive sprung down the steps, leapt into a boat, and was gone. Being taken afterwards at Gravesend, he confessed under torture that he had been bribed to commit the murder by the Provost of Paris. De Quadra, who had made himself an accomplice after the fact, was required to surrender the keys of his house; and his steward re

fusing to comply, the mayor sent workmen who changed the locks.

De Quadra went to the palace to complain; but the Queen, without permitting herself to be seen, referred him to the council; and Cecil at last told him that he could not be allowed to remain at Durham Place. All the Papists in London attended mass there; every malcontent, every traitor and enemy of the Government, came there at night to consult him. The disturbance which had broken out in Ireland was due to the advice given by de Quadra when O'Neil was in London; and but for the care which the Queen had taken of him he would probably have long before been murdered by the mob.1

De Quadra was not a man to be discomposed by high words. He replied that whatever he had done he had done by his master's orders; and complaints against himself were complaints against the King of Spain. If he had seemed to act in an unfriendly manner, the times were to blame; if he did not profess the English religion, he professed the religion of Christendom; and those noble and honourable men who came to his house to mass came where they had a right to come and did not deserve Cecil's imputations

Hot words passed to and fro. Cecil charged the Bishop with maintaining traitors and rebels. De Quadra

1 De Quadra to Philip, January | dwelling only in fuller detail on the 10: MS. Simancas. The account midnight conferences of conspirators of the matter sent by the English and traitors held at Durham Place : council to Sir Thomas Chaloner, Spanish MSS., January 7: Rolls agrees closely with that of de Quadra, House.

said it was not he or his master who were most guilty of using religion as a stalking-horse to disturb their neighbours' peace.

Cecil said the Bishop had encouraged Pole and Fortescue. The Bishop answered truly enough that he had had nothing to do with them or their follies.

'The meaning of it all,' de Quadra wrote to Philip, 'is this: they wish to dishearten the Catholics whom the Parliament will bring together from all parts of the realm. I am not to remain in this house because it has secret doors and entrances which we may use for mischief. They are afraid, and they have cause to be afraid. The heretics are furious at seeing me maintain the Catholics here with some kind of authority, and they cannot endure it; but a few days ago the Lord Keeper said that neither the Crown nor religion were safe so long as I was in the realm. It is true enough, as Cecil says, that I may any day be torn in pieces by the populace. Ever since this war in France, and the demonstrations in Paris against the heretics, the Protestant preachers have clamoured from the pulpit for the execution of 'Papists.' Even Cecil himself is bent on cruelty; and did they but dare they would not leave a Catholic alive in the land.

'But the faithful are too large a number, and if it comes to that they will sell their lives dear. London indeed is bad enough: it is the worst place in the realm: and it is likely-I do not say it in any fear, but only because it is a thing which your Majesty should know that if they force me to reside within the walls