Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 11.djvu/302

 286 REIGN OF ELIZABETH. [CH. 65. she was supposed to have done wrong, and to have con- spired to trouble the peace of England, she begged the privilege of the meanest criminal. Let the proofs be produced, let her be heard in answer in a public court, and if found guilty let her be punished as she deserved. She was not troubling the world, she said ; Elizabeth's own agents rather were filling Scotland with misery, and seeking the life of her child. For herself she was near the end of her pilgrimage. She could not last much longer only let not Elizabeth think she could be tamed by harshness. Dispositions like hers would not yield to violence. If she was to be won, she must be won by kindness. She was innocent of all that she was charged with, and she prayed as a favour, and demanded as a right, that she might have better servants to wait upon her in an illness which she expected would be her last, and a priest to prepare her for her end. 1 The letter was sent open through the French am- bassador that a copy of it might move compassion abroad, but at the unlooked-for turn of things in Scot- land, her spirits rose again, and from despair she sprung back to confidence. Messengers from Dumbarton and from the Duke of Guise continued to evade the watch- fulness of Lord Shrewsbury's guard at Sheffield. Guise reported that French influence was reviving, and that it would soon be re-established, and that Scotland would then be his to deal with as he pleased. He was ready as ever to cross over ; he waited only for the 1 Mary Stuart to Elizabeth, November 8 : LABANOFF, vol. v.