Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 10.djvu/73

 IS72-] THE DUKE OF NORFOLK. 53 much, mercy, if it were with the last drop of his heart's blood/ l ' The Peers, he said, had done their duty, but mercy had overcome justice ; and if his breach of promise had not too much discredited him, he hoped that the delay of execution was meant to tell him that he was to live. 7 2 It was but too certain that Elizabeth was relapsing into her habitual indecision. The experienced Sadler wrote that ' the discredit which would grow of incon- stancy at such a time, in a matter of such moment, was so great, that all good subjects mourned and lamented, and the evil rejoiced and took comfort, thinking either that God had taken from her the power to punish, or else that she was afraid/ 3 The Queen's plain-spoken cousin, Lord Hunsdon, was even more decided in his disapprobation. ' Her Majesty's carelessness of herself,' he wrote to Burghley, ' doth not only amaze me, but gives me to think it but labour lost to be so curious for foreign affairs, and so negligent for the preservation of her own person, the destruction whereof is the only thing which the enemies seek and desire ; for the compassing whereof no practice shall be omitted, or convenient time fore- slowed. Although God has miraculously revealed the same, it follows not that He will do so still, the rather because He so mercifully discovers these practices to her, and she so carelessly neglects to provide for the 1 Skipwith to Burghley, Feb- ruary 28 : MSS. Domestic. 2 Declaration of the Duke of Norfolk, February 26 : MUKDIN. 3 Sadler to Burghley, February 27 : MUKDIN.