Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 11.djvu/462

 446 kEIGN OF ELIZABETH. [cH. 66 policy which he advocated. She consented eagerly to his proposed mission ; she empowered him to assure Elizabeth, on her word of honour as a princess, that if the treaty were renewed and completed, she would com- pel her son into compliance. 1 She called God to wit- ness, in a letter to the Queen, that if the English succession were secured to James, she would herself remain for the rest of her life in retirement. To accept these advances would gratify France, rivet afresh the Anglo-French alliance, and, without war or expenditure of money, throw a diplomatic shelter over the Low Countries, and secure England from all danger of in- vasion on the northern border. Mauvissiere assured Elizabeth that his master's wish ' was to compound mat- ters in Scotland in a reasonable course,' to persuade the Q,ueen of Scots ' to give counsel to her son to her Ma- jesty's best liking/ ' to unite the Crowns of England, Scotland, and France, in good perfect friendship and amity.' * Elizabeth trusted these fair words only so far as she knew them to represent her brother of France's interests. Mauvissiere, on the other hand, trusted Elizabeth not a jot further : an experience of twenty-five years had taught him, he distinctly said, that the English Queen would promise anything, and was utterly indifferent to the performance of what she promised. Could she be ' The Queen of Scots to Mauvis- I 2 Points contained in the French siere, March 21 31, 1584 : LABAN- Ambassador's letter of May 1323 ; OFF, vol. v. MSS. Scotland.