Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 11.djvu/530

 REIGN OP ELIZABETH. . 67. quaintance of the Queen of Scots with the plot was con- firmed in all its parts. Orichton was examined on the rack. He said that he had been on his way to Scotland to make another effort for the conversion of James. 1 Two-thirds of England, he said, were expected, for one reason or another, to declare for the Queen of Scots. Her son might play fair or play false. Foreign Powers might hang fire and hesitate. Her real strength was believed by the Jesuits to be in England itself, and one remarkable expression was used by Crichton which the council knew to be -historically true : ' The title of the Crown was of great efficacy with the English nation, for whensoever any prince did govern evil, if the suc- cessor did take upon him to remedy the same, never any to whom the succession did belong did at any time take arms to reform the government, but he had good success.' If Mary Stuart was in a position to trouble Eliza- beth's quiet, as her grandfather had troubled crooked- backed Richard, she was herself to blame for it. Had the Casket letters been officially published after the Westminster investigation, Parliament would and must have declared the Queen of Scots incapable of the suc- cession, and her pretensions would have been heard of no more. It was too late for regrets, and these fresh dis- coveries now only increased Elizabeth's desire to come to terms with her. 1 Parts of the discourse in Italian, found about the Scotch Jesuit, taken on the seas on his way to Scotland. 1584: MSS. Domestic. "Walsing- ham to Stafford, October 2 : MSS. France.