Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 11.djvu/324

 5o8 REIGN OF ELIZABETH. [CH. 65 ing to write to the Queen of Scots to discover the names of her assured accomplices in England, if her Majesty findeth it good.' l The character of Lennox is of little moment to history. It is waste of labour to look among the masks which he assumed for the true face of so insignificant a wretch. The probability perhaps would still be that by an affectation of revealing what Elizabeth already knew he was attempting to steal into her confidence, or by false lists of names to conceal the real conspirators. There is one circumstance however which points the other way, and seems rather to indicate that he was false to his Catholic friends. In the midst of his negotiations with Cobham he suddenly died. Again, it may have been no more than coincidence. But if he was really treacherous he possessed secrets which would have cost Mary Stuart her life ; and if Guise discovered him to be false the dysentery which was said to have killed him may be easily explained. Any way, he may serve for an illustration of the training of the Jesuits, and is perhaps the only conspicuous person in the sixteenth century whose basenesses were unredeemed by any one single virtue. In the mean time the remonstrances of February TValsingham and Burghley and the letters of Sir Robert Bowes so far prevailed with Elizabeth that she was brought to reconsider her resolution to do ab- solutely nothing. She consented that the confederate 1 Oobham to "Walsingham, May r, 1583 : MSS. France.