Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 11.djvu/114

 REIGN OF ELIZABETH. [CH. 63, know that their force will be irresistible. The Queen, being now forty-nine years old, can no longer hope for children, and the entire realm will join with them in insisting on the settlement of the succession. If she refuse to allow the restoration of the Catholic religion, she can be deposed. I do not mention the names of these six noblemen. 1 They made me promise that I would neither write nor speak of them to any one till we see how things turn in Scotland. Of course, if they can do nothing, they would then prefer to remain un- known. But I am personally acquainted with all of them. They are zealous in God's service and your Majesty's. Their plans are reasonable and well laid. The first object being the winning of souls, God cannot but desire their success ; and besides the service of God, it will be in the interest of your Majesty and your realm to give them all the help that you can.' 2 The Jesuit leaven was working to some purpose. The six noblemen had all been ' received ' in course of the past year, and their dread of disloyalty had been washed away in the waters of their baptism. Proof multiplies on proof that Walsingham was right in his estimate of the character of the mission, and that no injustice whatever was done the seminary priests or the Order of Jesus, in regarding and treating them as trai- tors. They harl served their cause vigorously by their 1 It is easy to supply them. They must have been the Earl of North- umberland, the Earl of Arundel, Lord Henry Howard, Arundel' s uncle, Lord Paget, Lord Lumley, and either Vaux or Morley. 2 Mendoza to Philip, September 7, 1581: MSS. Simaneas, abridged.