Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 10.djvu/456

 436 REICN OF ELIZABETH. [CH. 61. This, too, Elizabeth knew. The Count de Hetz, going professedly on public business to Edinburgh, was charged secretly with a message to Guise's confederates there. He passed through London, applied for a pass- port, and was sent for to the Queen. She received him as she had first received Mendoza. She told him she knew what he was about. He was come to disquiet England and serve the cause of a wicked woman whose head ought long ago to have been struck from her shoulders. They might do their worst, she said, but the Queen of Scots should never go free, though it cost her life and realm. 1 Brave words, yet uttered with a faltering heart. So wearied, so perplexed was Elizabeth with the complica- tions in which she was entangled, that a few weeks later she had half concluded to let the Queen of Scots go free, and to disarm the disturbers of her peace by yielding to them. ' She spared not to make the fault light, and a common fault, for which the subjects of the Queen of Scots had deprived her/ and she refused d'Alenqon men frere et M. do Guyse mon bon cousin que suyvant leur ancienne deliberation ils se hasten!.' LABANOFF, vol. v. 1 ' Esta Reyna dio audiencia a Gondi a quien no recibio con tantas ceremonias como se acostumbra a los ambajadores. Dixole con voz alta en la sala de audiencia que bien sabia que venia ainquietarle su reyno y bacer officios por la mas mala muger del mundo, y que merecia tener cortada la cabec,a mucbos anos ha : a que le replied* el Gondi que la de Escocia era Keyna como ella y parienta suya y que estaba presa, a cuya causa no se espantase que tratasen de sus negocios. Respondi- dle con colera que en toda su vida no se veria libre aunque a ella le costase la suya y la perdida de su reyno.' - Mendoza a su Mag d, 5 de Mayo, 1578.