Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 11.djvu/436

 420 REIGN OF ELIZABETH. [CH. 66. March. abandoned purpose. He was allowed to remain at the Court. He saw the Queen continually, and again and again endeavoured to screw his courage to the striking point ; but he was made of the wrong material, and he found or made excuses for delay. Once, when he was about to stab her, he was appalled by her likeness to Henry VIII. At last he decided that he would not do it till other means of working upon her had been tried and failed ; he would obtain a seat in the next Parliament, and appeal in behalf of the Catholics to the representatives of his country. 1 "While ' the principal matter ' was thus halting, the conspirators abroad were in no good humour with each other. Every post from England brought news of arrests and imprisonments of their friends in England. The leaders, on whose assistance they had calculated, were disarmed and confined. Guise and the Pope blamed Philip. Philip defended his caution by appeal- ing to the evident fact that the English Catholics were weaker than they had pretended. He had himself collected ships and troops. He had even thought of accompanying the expedition in person, to secure the benefit of the expected conquest. 2 He described him self as being as much mortified as Guise, and as anxious to find means of repairing his disappointment. He felt but too sure that, after the expulsion of Mendoza, Elizabeth would ally herself in earnest with the Nether- 1 Parry's Confession : State Trials, vol. i. 2 Roger Bodenham to Burghley, from Seville, May 8 18: MSS. Spain.