Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 10.djvu/104

 REIGN OF ELIZABETH. [CH. 57. fanatics, so far from conceiving that she was in any danger from the Parliament, had threatened Elizabeth that if an attempt was made to cut her off from the suc- cession, she would appeal by deputy and raise the Houses against the Queen. 1 She little guessed the temper which she had succeeded at last in rousing. Mary Stuart, the next in blood to the Crown, the half- known Queen of reformed Scotland and tolerant of an- other creed though true to her own ; Mary Stuart, the wife of Darnley, and sprung herself from a marriage devised by the forethought of Henry VII. for the union of the Crowns : such a Mary Stuart had been looked upon by Catholic England with passionate hope, and by half Protestant England with more than favourable expectation. Mary Stuart, the murderess, the conspir- ator against the life of the Queen ; Mary Stuart, who had sought to bring England again under the yoke of the triple Crown and sell its liberties to the Spanish King this Mary Stuart might continue still an object of interest to the proud nobles of the old blood, to whom liberty was detestable, or to the venomous bigots who knew no crime but heresy, and no virtue but al- legiance to Holy Church. But to most even of the ruling families, England was dearer than prejudice. The revelations on the Duke of Norfolk's trial, and the publication, late though not too late, of the true history 1 ' Je me suis contrainte par cette lettre, n' ay ant autres moyen, protester que si en aucun parlement il se pretend faire quelque chose au prejudice de aion droict apres vous, mon intention est de m'y opposer et le debattre en 1'assemblee d'ung parlement.' Mary Stuart to Eliza- beth, April 30 : LABANOFF, vol. iv.