Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 11.djvu/528

 512 REIGN OF ELIZABETH. [CH. 67. It was perilous work, but she was growing reckless above all things she desired liberty. Nothing would be done for her, she well saw, while she continued a pri- soner while if once free she would know how to find a road out of her engagements. Philip had driven her to despair. When the Spanish cavaliers should have been knocking at the gates of Sheffield Castle, Philip was revelling .at the Escurial over an acquisition more valu- able to him than the conquest of an Empire. A frag- ment of a broken shoulder-bone, said to have belonged to San Lorenzo, had been found in Italy, the correspond- ing portion of which had long been the most precious of Spanish relics. The Cardinal de Medici had presented the King with the newly discovered treasure, and the precious thing occupied all his thoughts, and left him no leisure for more worldly interests. 1 It was time for the Queen of Scots' second secretary, and the proof that it contained of her incurable falsehood may have contributed to the conviction that it was necessary to come to an end with her. 1 ' You may judge how delighted I have been with your letter of the 2Oth of July, in which you tell me that you are in possession of half the shoulder of San Lorenzo, and that you propose to send it to me. The relic is a grand one, and I, as you know, am specially devoted to this particular saint. The other half is already here, and the two parts can now be united. Your present is beyond price, and I cannot thank you sufficiently for procuring me so great a pleasure. I understand the .difficulties which you must have had to encounter, and which all your authority must have been required to overcome. I thank you, I repeat, most warmly. You had better send the precious thing to my ambassador at Genoa, Don Pedro de Mendoza. I shall prepare him, and he will con- trive to forward it. ' You tell me that the bone split of itself down the middle, when you least expected. This is one of the circumstances which enhances its value. Send the evidences, I be- seech you, along with it. The Genoa line will save time and pre- vent accident, and it will have fine spring weather for the journey.'