Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 11.djvu/461

 1584.] EXPULSION OF MENDOZA. 445 dent Sovereign would prefer the chances of the sword. The French Court itself undertook to become respons- ible for the Queen of Scots, and the state of Scotland was less unfavourable than it might have seemed. The Earl of Arran, by whom the King was now controlled, was a hard, clear-headed, and entirely unscrupulous villain, to whom creeds appeared fools' playthings, and power and wealth the only concern of a reasonable man. His title and his estates depended on the exclusion of the Hamiltons, and the Hamiltons had deserved too well of the Catholic cause to be left dispossessed of their patrimony in the event of a religious revolution. On the capture of Gowrie and the flight of the Lords to England, Arran had made advances therefore to Lord Hunsdon at Berwick, in the spirit of Mauvissiere's pro- posals to Elizabeth. It was hinted that if there was to be a general reconciliation, the Earls of Angus and Mar might be allowed to return, supposing the Queen of Scots would intercede for them. The settlement of Scotland, on the English episcopal pattern, was held out as a further temptation, and it was through these con- siderations that Gowrie had been sacrificed, and the re- solution had been ultimately arrived at to abstain from interference by arms. Spain was hopelessly slow Throgmorton had con- fesseddiscovery and disappointment had clung like a shadow to every plot in which Philip had borne a part. Mary Stuart, afraid of what might follow to herself, were Elizabeth to be forced finally into open war, had written to Mauvissiere, expressing sympathy with the