Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 11.djvu/216

 200 REIGN OF ELIZABETH. [CH. 64. Majesty, I said, will not hear words, so we must come to the cannon, and see if you will hear them.' ' Quietly, in her most natural voice, as if she was tell- ing a common story, she said, that if I used threats of that kind she would fling me into a dungeon.' ' I replied, that I was not threatening, hut was giving her my master's message. She must do as she pleased, hut if she made me prisoner, God had given me a sovereign who, if I were merely his subject instead of an ambassador, would come and fetch me out/ But Mendozahad ascertained what he wanted to know. The Queen was no longer afraid, and then and always he had strict orders not to provoke her too far. She called the Earl of Sussex and Lord Clinton to her. ' My Lords,' she said, ' Don Bernardino affirms that since I will not listen to his words, we must come to the cannon. I told him he need not think to frighten me.' ' I replied,' wrote Don Bernardino, ' that I was not so foolish ; princes did not endure to be menaced hy private persons ; and the Queen, being a lady also, and so beautiful a lady, might well throw me to the lions.' 'Her countenance cleared at the compliment, so absurd a person is she. She began to boast of the kind things that she had done for your Majesty. She had saved the Netherlands from France for you, she said, and you in return had invaded Ireland, and pensioned her rebels ; Don Guerau de Espes had stirred disaffection in Eng- land ; and I had tried to bribe a man to kill Don Antonio.'