Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 10.djvu/60

 40 REIGN OF ELIZABETH. [CH. 57. far more importance, which, though too long delayed, was still in time to be of use. As careful of the Queen of Scots' honour as she had been careful of her life, Elizabeth had been contented to endure the misconstruction of Europe, to allow a vague belief to spread that the evidence produced against her at Westminster was incomplete, and to give her a chance of recovering the fair fame which she had so foully blotted. Elizabeth had not only refused, against the advice of her wisest ministers, to publish the story in her own defence, when it would have silenced the murmurs of the Catholic world, but she had forced the Scots to suffer also the disadvantage of a doubtful cause. Now, at length, she withdrew her prohibition. A narrative of the events which had led to the Queen of Scots' deposition was drawn up by George Buchanan. 1 Ver- sions of the casket letters in French and Latin were attached to the narrative, and the whole was printed under the title of ' The Detection of the Doings of Mary Queen of Scots, touching the Murder of her 1 The vituperative eloquence which has been poured upon Bucha- nan's ' Detectio ' has failed to expose a single serious error in it, and in the few trifling points where a question can he fairly raised upon Buchanan's accuracy, is it clear that the fault does not lie after all in the inadequate information of his critics? The book has been called slanderous from the completeness of the case which it establishes. The senti- mentalism which cannot tolerate the notion of the Queen of Scots' guilt denounces the evidence against her as forged. But to denounce is not to prove. The account which was now published was the deliberate plea of Protestant Scotland at the bar of Europe ; and as the passionate aspect of the story gives place to calmer consideration, it will receive at last the authoritative position which it deserves.