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 1921 IN 1562/3 AND 1566 505 and we can pass beyond the mere conjecture and establish it as the truth. It is clear from the wording of Jthe reports of Elizabeth's speech at the audience, that the summons to it was an anticipation of the petition which was being prepared ; x whilst it also appears that the thirty members of the house of commons who were present were especially annoyed because they had not their speaker with them and were therefore voiceless. 2 We must regard the audience as an astute counter-move of the queen's. She thereby escaped the awkward necessity of replying to weighty arguments presented in the concrete form of a petition, and made her speech for the defence without allowing the prosecu- tion to state its case. Private interviews with the leading nobility had probably already shaken their determination, 3 and the substantial promises in her speech were calculated to reassure the lords and so break up that combination of both houses which, as she herself complained, by isolating her threw upon her the full odium and peril if she refused or delayed assent to their suit. 4 Regarding the events of 5 November in this light, the subsequent action of the commons is readily understood. As for Elizabeth's speech at the audience, Silva has a highly dramatic account of it, which by the very qualities that should arouse suspicion has obscured its true character. 5 None knew better than she how to temper reproof with conciliation — or, we perhaps should say, how to temper conciliation with reproof. And the more sober account of the speech which Cecil gave to the house of commons on 6 November is at least a necessary antidote to Silva 's. 6 I print below a new report of the speech, the fullest we have, and the only one free from any partisan bias. 7 Taking this in conjunction with Silva 's report and Cecil's draft accounts in the State Papers, it is evident that if the queen's speech was something of a rating for her hearers, it was also a defence of her own policy. Both able and clever, it also offered 1 Cf. ' She tooke knolledg of the petition that was to be made to hir. . . ' (State Papers, Dom., Eliz., xli, no. 9) ; ' the matter wherof as I am enformed they would haue made their peticion. . . ' (infra, p. 515). 2 Infra, p. 517. 3 Cf. Spanish Cal., Eliz., i. 592-3. 4 State Papers, Dom., Eliz., xli, no. 7. 6 Spanish Col., Eliz., i. 594. Cf. Froude, vii. 458 f. 6 State Papers, Dom., Eliz., xli, no. 9. No. 8 consists of heads of the speech noted down by Cecil. No. 7 is a report, endorsed ' this was not reported ', and it is evident that Cecil recast it into the more moderate report of no. 9. Nevertheless Froude makes Cecil deliver report no. 7 in the house, despite its endorsement (Froude, vii. 461). 7 Infra, p. 514. There is also a fragment in Elizabeth's hand, a draft opening of this speech (State Papers, Dom., Eliz., xli, no. 5). Froude prints it (vii. 458), and assumes that Elizabeth actually read from it : but the fact that it is a fragment rather indicates that it was a preliminary draft which she began, but then discarded. Perhaps second thoughts moderated it slightly. It is interesting to compare it with the report that I print, which shows that she retained at least one of its figures of speech (infra, p. 514).