Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 11.djvu/466

 4 jo REIGN OF ELIZABETH. [CH. 66 Her Majesty, Wade answered, had taken care of the first and the last ; the second she must deserve. Eng- land would never accept her as Queen without her Ma- jesty's consent. She was deceiving herself if she ex- pected support from France. He had himself heard Mauvissiere say that ' France would spend forty million crowns before she or her son should reign in England.' After her double-dealing with Spain, it was but too likely that this might be true. She began again ' to moan her grief and her woful estate.' She complained of her friends' neglect of her, of her imprisonment and misery. She was younger in years, she said, than the Queen of England, but suffering had made her older to look at. 1 God would avenge her enemies and those that were the authors of her overthrow, whom she stuck not to curse.' When the torrent of eloquence began to slacken, Wade reminded her of certain things which she had forgotten intrigues, practices, and conspiracies. She said that the Queen had never trusted her, and could not justly blame her. She did not deny that she had begged her friends to exert themselves for her, but she had meant innocently, and if they had done wrong, the fault was theirs. Wade spoke of proofs. She said, angrily, that ' lit was not of calling to reason with her.' He answered that he was not of calling either to hear his own mis- tress found fault with. There were few princes in Christendom who would not have made shorter work with her ; and if sh'e would seriously consider what she