Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 11.djvu/296

 28o REIGN OF ELIZABETH. [CH. 65. at stake as ours. She mst not stint her liberality if she wishes the Lords success.' 1 The circumstances were the same as they had been. The Scotch Protestants had once more snatched their country out of the hands of a faction whose chief aim was England, whose mano3uvres in Scotland were solely undertaken that it might be used for the general in- vasion. Elizabeth, untaught by experience, acted in precisely the same manner. She had wished Lennox and Arran to be killed. She would have been rid of two dangerous enemies at a trifling cost to herself, and she would have paraded to the world her horror at the atrocity of their assassination. But they had fallen from power the immediate danger was passed, and the ordinary humour again interposed. The Kirk was the chief buttress of her throne, and she hated it in pro- portion to its value to her. She had sent Sir Robert Bowes with a thousand pounds to Gowrie after the cap- ture of the King, but even this miserable sum she had forbidden him to give if Lennox could be got rid of without it. ' I lament,' wrote Bowes, committing his October. . ' & opinion to a friend's ear, 2 'I lament to be- hold such untimely sparing in cases where most cost ought to be employed to purchase the fruit that might yield both security for her Majesty's estate, and avoid expenses in time coming. I am inwardly afraid that God's determined judgment will not suffer us to repair 1 Colvillc to Randolph, September 28 : MSS. Scotland. 2 Bowes to "Walsingham. October iy. Cipher : MSS. Ibid.