Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 10.djvu/371

 5751 THE SPANISH TREATY. 351 might have defended the assassination of Orange. To return to Sir Henrjr Cobham. The instructions which he carried with him were not limited to English interests. His first business was with the Inquisition. If the Holy Office persisted in interfering with the mer- chants, he was directed to say that ' the amity could not continue/ The English were not heretics. They merely ' professed a difference ' in the observation of the rites and forms of the Church. The Queen recom- mended her brother-in-law f to be guided rather/ in these questions, ' by such as were of noble birth anrl temporal vocation, than by such as had their oaths to the Church of Rome, and preferred the particular affairs of the Pope before the service of the King/ But beyond this which concerned herself, Elizabeth went a step further. A gleam of success had lighted the fortunes of the gallant Orange on the arrival of de Valdez. Eequescens had attacked Leyden, and the ever- memorable defence of the city had ended in the flight and ruin of the besieging army. Negotiations for peace followed, but had been broken off on the old point of toleration. The Queen, in her capacity of mutual friend, now proposed to mediate. She made the most of the offers which the States had pressed upon herself. The King, she said, ought to be aware that ' in Christen- dom he had no such friend as she had been/ The States were ready to return to their allegiance if they would have toleration on the terms of the Peace of Passau, and Philip need not hesitate to allow what had been allowed by his father. This one concession would