Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 11.djvu/431

 1584.] EXPULSION OF MENDOZA. 415 than sooner. The assassination of Elizabeth alone would certainly precipitate the convulsion. On this therefore the eyes of the crew at Paris were fastened with deadly earnestness. As one plot failed another grew in its place, and in their first rage of disappointment they sent over a chosen instrument of villa ny carefully disciplined for the work, whose history is peculiarly illustrative of the character of the time. Among the correspondents whose letters from abroad to Burghley and Walsingham are preserved in the Record Office, one of the most regular was William Parry. He had been educated in the palace, and for many years had held an office about the Queen's person ; he had attracted her notice, and was on terms of easy intimacy with her. Being a ruffling scoundrel, he had some discreditable quarrel with a gentleman of the Temple, whom he attempted to run through the body. He was tried, found guilty, and left for execution, but was saved by his mistress's interference. He went abroad in July, 1582, with permission to remain till his crime was forgotten ; and to recover favour, he proposed to Walsingham to make himself useful, by collecting in- formation, and sending it home to the council. He had no particular principles. The Court was the most lax of all places in England in its religious observances. The Queen chose that half the household should be Catholics. Every one was left, in consequence, to his own conscience, and Parry had not ' communicated ' for twenty years. In this condition he fell an easy victim to the Jesuits. He was secretly 'reconciled'