Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 10.djvu/527

 1580.] THE ALEN(^ON MARRIAGE. 507 Queen listened at Audley End to the whispers of Mau- vissiere, save only that her master-piece of policy had recoiled upon herself, and that her danger was aggra- vated by the affront which she had passed upon Alenyon. The wisest of her ministers could recommend nothing better than what he had recommended .before. The obligation which of all others had once been most in- cumbent on her, she had neglected the fulfilment of till it had become useless. Queens do not reign for their own pleasure, and the ignoble passion which had prevented her from making an honourable marriage when she was young, with a prospect of children, was no justification of her barren age which now threatened the realm with convulsions. Individuals may trifle at their foolish will with character or fortune; sovereigns, on whom de- pends the weal of empires, contract duties from their high places, which their private humours cannot excuse them for neglecting. To expect her to do what Cecil advised was to expect her to change her nature. In- curably convinced of her own supreme intelligence she would take no more of his counsel than such fragments as necessity enforced upon her, and these fragments, backed by the energy of a splendid nation, carried England, and Elizabeth with it, clear at last of the threatening breakers. The calamities of unprosperous reigns are charged upon sovereigns; and sovereigns therefore, it is but just, should be credited with their peoples successes; but the personal contribution of Elizabeth to the final victory of Protestantism, was but in yielding at last to a stream which she had strug-