Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 11.djvu/301

 I S 82.] THE JESUITS IN SCOTLAND. 285 The Queen of Scots, after her first burst of energy, finding Guise motionless, Lennox shut up in Dum- barton, and Mendoza's encouragement to look for help from Philip unrealized, had again begun to despond. M. de Fontenay, the brother of Nau, her French secretary, had been at Sheffield, and had been allowed to see her. She bade him go to Madrid, and try once more to move Philip, while she wrote to Don Bernardino to say that her affairs would not bear any further procrastination, and that if the King would not or could not assist her, she must come to terms with Elizabeth. She was pre- pared, she said, to consent to any conditions which would restore her to liberty ; and she proposed to retire to some place where she could spend the rest of her life in de- votion, and no longer fret away her days in fruitless efforts. 1 She addressed one of her long passionate appeals to Elizabeth, in which eloquence gave falsehood the effect of truth. Now upbraiding, now tender and pathetic, she sung again the old tale of her ill-usage. Through the weary years of her imprisonment, she vowed that she had laboured to please, and her sincerity had been doubted, her motives misrepresented, delay had been piled on delay, and injustice on injustice. If los conjurados se hubieran acordado con Aubigny sino fuera por los mi- nistros que lo habian impedido.' Mendoza al Rey, i Noviembre : HSS. Simancas. 1 'Je desire infinietnent avoir de une fa<;on ou aultrc quelque resolu- tion ; car si mes ouvcrturcs lie sont pour reussir, j'ay delibere de re- chercber par tous moyens et a quel- ques conditions license de me retirer en quelque lieu de repos, pour y passer le reste de ma vie avec plu8 de liberte de ma conscience, sans me consumer ici davantage inutilement. The Queen of Scots to Don Ber- nardino, October 12, 1582 : MSS. Simancas,