Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 11.djvu/326

 3 io REIGN OF ELIZABETH. [CH. 65. quiet of Scotland, and that the price was not excessive. Half of it would be paid as a pension to the King, and would cost her nothing, for it was in fact his own. Four thousand pounds might be given in the form of pensions to the Lords of the English party, and one thousand would maintain a permanent English minister at Edinburgh. It Avas a cheap bargain. Every pound so expended would in the long-run have saved ten. But the Queen ' utterly misliked the casting of her into charges.' She would not listen to any such proposal. She said she would sooner marry James than give him so much money. ' What further determination she would grow to/ Walskigharn was unable to guess. 1 For direct measures then and always Elizabeth had an incurable dislike. She resented the perpetual efforts to extort money from her. Experience had proved more than ever that in extremity the Protestant party had been able by themselves to take the control of the Government. She believed that they could hold it without help from her treasury, if a certain number of waverers could be detached from the opposite faction, and if by skilful manoeuvres she could force them to rely upon themselves. They were now playing France against England. She conceived that she could turn their position by playing the mother against the son. She had ascertained during the winter that whatever the Queen of Scots might pretend, there was not only a general objection in Scotland to the Queen of Scots' plan Walsinghatn to Bowes, March 2 ' MSS. Scotland.