Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 10.djvu/399

 i 57 6.] THE SPANISH TREATY. 379 low out her scheme of reconciliation with Philip, by assisting in their suppression. It was not a noble, not a long-sighted policy. Wal- siiigham had more than once to characterize his mis- tress's proceedings by the words ' dishonourable and dangerous/ and Walsingham was not a man who used such expressions lightly. But it suited her temper. She prided herself on the skill with which she handled delicate manoeuvres. It was economical. It gained time. She lived, as the phrase is, ' from hand to mouth/ and trusted to her good luck to stand her friend. A few months proved Randolph's simplicity to have been wiser than the Queen's cunning. The Catholic nobles in France laughed the Edicts to scorn. Com- plaints were useless, for there was no central authority to attend to them. Alencon and the King were recon- ciled, and Alencon was won away from his late friends. Guise, supplied with dollars from Madrid, threatened the Huguenot towns. The States- General met at Blois in November. The Protestants stayed away. A reso- lution was passed with Alencon's consent that the Edicts were impracticable, and that only one religion could be tolerated ; that the Protestant ministers must either submit or go into exile ; and that Conde and Navarre should lose their rank as princes of the blood, unless they were reconciled with the Church. 1 1 It is noticeable that when the breach of faith with the Huguenots was first proposed, alone of all the nobles present, one 'Mirabeau of Poitou' protested that he would leave the Court and the Estates and with- draw to his home if such impolitic and dishonourable speeches were