Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 11.djvu/503

 THE BOND OF ASSOCIATION. 4 fcf She was so positive that she in part talked down his distrust. He gave her some faint AugUSt< hope, though not much. He told Sidney that if he went to Paris after all, he would find it his interest to be frank ; but he refused for himself to be the instrument of further negotiation. He had found so many changes in England, he said, so much uncertainty, so many artifices, not to call them by the harder name of lies, that if a league was to be made, others, and not he, must be the instru- ments of it. 1 There was no time to be lost. St Aldc- gonde wrote from Antwerp that unless England or France interposed, the cause of the States was really lost ; that Parma offered easy terms, and that they had but to submit for all to be forgotten. Roger Williams, an English officer in the States' service, confirmed St Aldegonde. If the Hollanders saw that England would not help them, they were in a humour to insist on peace. 2 After the submission of the States, it was quite cer- tain that England's turn would come next. Parma, Guise, James, Pope, Jesuits, Papists all would fall on Elizabeth together, with results which could hardly be doubtful. There was the old uncertainty whether the English nation would approve of an aggressive war, of the rea- 1 ' Mais que par deS. Ilollatul.