Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 11.djvu/39

 1581.] THE JESUIT INVASION. 23 beth, she did in some degree recognize that she could not safely let Morton die. She was herself, as she well knew, the real object of the conspiracy, and interest as well as honour required that Lennox should not sup- pose that he could defy her with impunity. He had .gathered courage from her vacillation ; he should see that she could be provoked too far. She sent the Earl of Huntingdon to York to raise levies of men, with directions to make choice especially of persons ' well affected in religion/ and to join Hunsdon at Berwick with as large a force as he could collect ; while Thomas Randolph, grown old now, but with long experience in Scotch politics, went back to the scene of his early labours to take part in a later act of the same play, to tell the King in Elizabeth's name that her forbearance was exhausted, and that he must retrace his steps and release Morton, or prepare for the consequences. He carried with him copies of a correspondence between the Archbishop of Glasgow and a Cardinal at Rome, procured by an emissary of "Walsingham, which re- vealed the meaning of Lennox's presence in Scot- land, which exposed the connection of the invasion of Ireland, the inroad presently to be described of the Jesuits and seminary priests into England, and the Guisian intrigue at Holyrood. The young lord by whom James was allowing himself to be directed had come over, as Randolph was able to prove, merely and only ' to overthrow religion ' in Scotland first and in England after ; ' a thing which would not be accom- plished without the bloodshed of infinite numbers, and