Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 10.djvu/495

 157&1 THE ALENCON MARRIAGE., 47$ come over upon such an uncertain answer. The will of God be done to her comfort and her poor realm, that cannot but suffer much either by not marrying or by a husband.' 1 The foreign policy of England, on which the fate of Europe depended, was thus once more converted into a speculation, which, if address and management be in themselves evidence of statesmanship, entitles Elizabeth to a first place among politicians. She fed the hopes of her lover with a prospect which was for ever dancing before his eyes, receding when he tried to grasp it, yet receding so little that with the next effort he felt assured of his prize. In the art which in meaner persons is called coquetry, the Queen had no rival past, present, or to come. For three years she held the heir of the French crown hanging in expectation upon her pleasure. For all that time she suspended the public action of France in the diplomacy of Europe. If the Low Countries were torn asunder, if the Belgian provinces were lost to Protestantism and freedom, if Ghent be- came the prey of mobs, if Maestrecht was taken by the Spaniards, and out of forty thousand inhabitants a few hundreds only escaped alive, Elizabeth laid up money for the day of her own trial, and postponed for a lew years the time when she too would have to light for her crown. Miracles, meanwhile, such as her ministers looked for to supply her shortcomings, providences, happy Burghley to Walsingham, September 8 : 3fSS. Holland.