Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 10.djvu/477

 1578.] THE ALEN^ON MARRIAGE. 457 beth frantic. Her metaphor of ' the rising sun ' lost its point from perpetual iteration ; while to burden the suc- cession with the condition of Protestantism would de- stroy the foundation on which she most relied for her personal security. Mary Stuart claimed before her son, and Mary Stuart's rights she determined to negatively maintain. She did not mean to recognize her, but far less would she consent to religious limitation by which the expectations of the Catholics would be extinguished. She meant to keep the Catholics and Mary Stuart on their good behaviour. The request for the estates set her at once in fierce antagonism. The Abbot implored her to be reasonable. If the law was uncertain, he proposed that the lands should be sequestrated, and the rents and profits made over to the King, to maintain a guard about his person and pay the Border police. The King himself was notoriously unable to do either. He had many enemies, the Abbot said, and was exposed to violent attacks ; were there no other motive for liberality, the Queen would find herself well rewarded, if she silenced those who told him that her goodwill never went beyond ' words.' The estates in equity were the King's ; if she would neither let him have them nor give him an equivalent, there would be serious dis- content throughout Scotland. 1 Had the Queen replied that to grant the rents would prejudge the claim, but that she would allow the King an equal sum in the name of a pension, even this offer Negotiations of the Abbot of Dunfermline, July, 1578: JSfSS. Scotland.