Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 10.djvu/364

 344 REIGN OF ELIZABETH, [CH. 60. ments of the Queen of Scots had been hung upon Eliza- beth. The English Reformation was represented as a monstrous product of lust and tyranny and spoliation, and Cromwell, Cranmer, Burghley, every statesman and thinker whom Protestant England had produced, were held up as panders to the wickedness of Henry VIII. and his bastard daughter. Elizabeth insisted that Philip should set a mark of disapproval on these revilers, and Philip yielded. As a set-oif Mendoza invited Elizabeth to reconsider her secession from the Church, and her answer was not positively unfavourable. Present change she said was impossible,, but she gave him hopes that she would con- sider about it at a more favourable moment. The com- mercial differences were settled. The ships and cargoes seized on both sides had been long sold, but the accounts were produced and balanced, and the Spanish treasure, the original ground of quarrel, was allowed for in the general estimate. One question only was left open, which Philip reserved for his own special consideration, on what terms English factors and merchant ships were to be allowed to make use of Spanish port towns and harbours. The Holy Office claimed absolute authority in Spanish waters, and forbade f the accursed thing ' within gunshot of their shores. English seamen who had had Prayer-books on board with them, had been imprisoned in the Inquisition dungeons, and their vessels and cargoes confiscated. The Queen insisted that the deck of an English ship was English soil. ' I assure you/ she said to de Guaras, 'it is a thing my