Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 11.djvu/529

 1584.] FHE BOND UF ASSOCIATION. 513 some bolder spirit to take the reins of the enterprise, and Mary Stuart, with sixteen years of mortification to avenge, felt that no one was fitter than herself. Elizabeth was nearer to yielding than she had been at any time since the Queen of Scots came first to England. It was thought desirable however that there should be a simultaneous declaration on the part of the English nation of their loyalty to their present Sovereign during her natural life. In the same September in which Sadler and Somers were listening to Mary Stuart's professions, Crichton, the Jesuit, and another priest who had been chaplain to the Bishop of Ross, were taken in the Channel by a Flushing privateer. Crichton wits ob- served to tear some sheets of paper, and try to throw them into the sea. The pieces were blown back on deck, and were sent with the prisoners to Walsingham. The priests were committed to the Tower, the torn fragments were put together, and were found to contain a history in Italian of the intended invasion of England from the first going over of the Duke of Lennox into Scotland. Not much was added to what was already known ; but any doubts which might have adhered to Throgmorton's confession were wholly removed. The plans were identically the same ; the names of the English Catholics concerned were the same the uc- ' Deseo que con la reliquia me em- bieis la fe y tcstimonio que os parc- ciere convenir para que juntamentc se guarde ; y para que no pierda pasage os encargo la brevedad del embiarles a Genoa para que puedan VOL. XI. gozar de la primavera.' Philip to the Cardinal de' Medici, November 14, 1584. From the Escurial, called always by Philip San Lorenzo, to whom it was dedicated: MSS.