Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 10.djvu/381

 I575-J THE SPANISH TREATY. Buys and Francis Maldesen, came as commissioners from the States. Their arrival in England was. simultaneous with the return of Cobhain, whose report did not tend to clear the situation. It was conciliatory on the whole, but the offered mediation was refused. Towards the States there was no concession, and the lives and properties of English traders were still only secured by a verbal pro- mise of Alva. The council sat day after day unable to resolve. The heads of the guilds, with the leading merchants and manufacturers, were called in to assist in the consultation. Leicester, Walsingham, Bedford, Knowles, Mildrnay, and privately Burghley, were for accepting the offers of the States. The men of the city, with the Spanish party among the Peers, were for peace and alliance with Philip. The controller of the household, Sir James Crofts, insisted that the Queen's revenue sufficed barely for the ordinary expenditure, and that taxation in a doubtful cause would be resented by the country. 1 Elizabeth herself, furious that the quiet of Europe should be sacrificed to Protestant pre- ciseness, was so vehement, that one day, according to de Guaras, after a stormy discussion, she flung out of the council chamber, and locked herself into her 1 Speech on the question of giv- ing aid to the Prince of Orange, in French : MSS. Flanders, 1575. The translator attributes it to the Chancellor. But there was no Chancellor in England at this time, the Great Seal being held by Sir Nicholas Bacon, as Lord Keeper. The person meant must be the Con- troller Crofts, who is specified by de Guaras as having advocated the Spanish side. Cartas de Antonio de Guaras, December 31 : MSS. Si-