Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 10.djvu/436

 416 REIGN OF ELIZABETH. [CH. 60. August. money to Casimir that he might raise a fresh army of Reiters and march on Paris. 1 Everything, was now for the moment changed. The friendship of Scotland became valuable, and she was ready to give pensions to the nobles there. 2 Circulars went round to compel Catho- lics to attend the English service. Mass-books were hunted up ; scoundrels who used bad language against the Queen were pilloried and lost their ears, the judges showing themselves zealous, perhaps over-zealous, in catching the wind while it was blowing. 3 Leading 1 Her fluctuations appear in a series of letters from Leicester to Walsingham. On the loth of August Leicester wrote that she said she had promised the French King not to help Conde, and that she could not do it. He had explained to her that no other prince would hesitate in such a situation as that in which she was placed. ' If she allowed her best friends to quail with their cause it was impossible that she could stand. She would thus have all the mighty princes of the earth against her, and not a friend left.' On the 1 5th he laid before her the dangers to which she was exposed 4 by the slack dealing with her friends.' He ' found her relenting.' ' God -was moving her heart to con- sider her own and her country's wealth.' The day after he writes that ' after much reasoning he found her Majesty to be sorry that she had so slenderly dealt with her friends, and did more plainly see if they were overthrown how hardly she would be beset by her enemies. He forgot not to lay before her these counsels from time to time, and how mani- festly her perils had been foreseen, and that none other remedy there was in man's policy but relieving of her friends. She was in a mind at last to repair the oversight passed.' Leicester to Walsingham, August 10, 13, 14, 15 : MSS. France. 2 "Walsingham to Burghley, Au- gust 29 : MSS. Domestic. 3 The judges' views on such matters are illustrated by a letter from Mr Justice Manwood to Sir Walter Mildmay. ' Sir, Concerning the lewd fel- low, who, after his deserved punish- ment by pillory, did persist with more lewd and slanderous speeches towards her Majesty in the presence of the people being at the execution, his offence is thereby aggravated, and he therefore to sustain a more grievous punishment. By the late statute he