Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 10.djvu/203

 F572-] THE MASSACRE OF ST BARTHOLOMEW. 183 Killigrew had been despatched to Scotland in the first excitement which followed the massacre, when Elizabeth expected an immediate union of the Catholio Powers against her, when she was uncertain altogether of the position in which she was about to find herself either towards France or Spain or the Prince of Orange. If, as there was too much reason to suppose, the death- struggle for Catholic reascendency was at last to begin, there would then have been an adequate reason for deal- ing decisively with Mary Stuart ; but it seemed as if nothing short of an extreme exigency of this kind could nerve the Queen to sufficient resolution as if, the moment that the strain was taken off, she relapsed into her old uncertainty. Maitland ever maintained, and defended his own conduct by maintaining, that what- ever Elizabeth might threaten, or might at times believe that she meant to do, she would end by restoring Mary Stuart to her throne. Maitland had accurately judged the Queen's natural tendency, and there were traitors about her who for ever encouraged her weakness, and whose influence was perpetually at work to thwart her wiser advisers. Under no circumstances would she have consented to the Regent's last demand. Before the conditions reached her, she had already repented of her moment- ary firmness, and Leicester on the 2nd of J November. November had to write to Burghley that ' her Majesty had been in strange resolutions,' that ' he never grew on the part of the Regent and Morton, October 28 : MSS. Scotland.