Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 11.djvu/573

 155-] THE BOND OF ASSOCIATION. 557 The King, as Stafford said, wished Morgan at the bottom of the sea. He was notoriously the Queen of Scots' servant, and on the rack he might possibly enough mention her. Elizabeth regarded him as a mere mur- derer Catholic Europe regarded him as the loyal servant of an injured mistress, and to have given him up at that moment might have precipitated the. con- vulsion which was hanging over Henry's head. It was doubtful, in fact, whether he could be carried down to the sea. The Guises held the roads through Normandy, and he might be carried off, and Lord Derby perhaps killed. But Elizabeth was obstinate and violent. Walsing- ham suggested that she should express gratitude for the arrest. She would not do it, 1 Savage at her political defeat, and glad to fasten any other faults upon the King, she sent him, instead of thanks, one of the most singular letters ever addressed by one Sovereign to an- other. She accused him of concealing the most im- portant of Morgan's ciphers, and of constituting him- self the protector of assassins and conspirators. She said he was permitting her worst enemies to visit Mor- gan, to arrange his defence for him, and prompt him to conceal his accomplices. She told him that he must be asleep, or that he must be blinded by necromancy. At the same time she wrote to Catherine de Medici that her son had better remember that he was no favourite of the priests, and that if he did not consider better 1 Walsingham to Stafford, March 7 17 : MSS. France.