Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 11.djvu/293

 I532-1 THE JESUITS IN SCOTLAND. 277 required prompt and severe execution of justice, and did not know what to think/ l Mendoza heard whispers in London that Lennox was to be killed or expelled, Angus to be appointed Regent, the King and his mother to be got rid of, and the Scotch claims on the suc- cession to be ended by the nomination of Lord Hunt- ingdon. 2 To the latter part of the scheme Elizabeth at least must have been no consenting party. But it may possibly have occurred to Leicester, and to others whose worldly fortunes depended on the Protestant succession. If the persons of English sovereigns were sacred, no lives were more precarious than those of princes or princesses who had inconvenient pretensions in virtue of royal blood. It seems however that Gowrie and his party did not choose to commit themselves to severe measures till they knew on what support they might calculate. Without money the force which they could command was after all extremely small. The strength of Protestantism lay among tradesmen, artisans, and peasants, who were a fine material for soldiers, but were unorganized, untrained to arms, and too poor to fight at 1 Leicester to Angus, September 7 : MSS. Scotland. 2 ' El designio con que inflama- ron, fuera de las pensiones dadivas y dineros, al de Angus, fue con que echado del reyno 6 muerto a Au- bigny, el seria Gobernador del como fue su tio Morton ; y por haber sido el medio el Conde de Hunting- don de assistir al de Angus, y ser despues de la reyna de Escocia el que piensa tener derecho a esta coro- na, es de temer que no maten 6 den venedicos al Rey como se empieqa a rugir desde agora ; acabando junta- mente a su madre, con lo cual el de Leicester y toda la parcialidad de los hereges entienden a segurar el derecho de Huntingdon que les ea grandisimo, y en que tiene puesta la mira.' Mendoza al Rey, i Setiem- bre, 1582 : MSS. Simancas.