Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 11.djvu/591

 1585-] THE BOND OF ASSOCIATION. 575 throne, and so keen a feeling had been created that Parliament had again desired to proceed against her. She must see herself that the time was not favourable for proceeding with the treaty. Sir Lewis Bellenden declined to visit her.' 1 The truth was thus forced upon her in all its bitter- ness. She had humbled herself before her enemy, she had compromised her reputation as a Catholic, and her prison-gates were more firmly locked than ever. There were dismal scenes too at Tutbury, not directly con- nected with herself, but suggestive of dreary forebodings. A young Catholic caught in the neighbourhood had been brought into the castle and confined there. Sadler's Puritan servants, thinking to benefit his soul, had carried him daily across the courtyard to the Chapel prayers. The Queen of Scots had watched the poor wretch struggling and screaming in their hands. One morning when she looked out she saw him hanging from his window. He had gone mad with misery, and had destroyed himself. 2 She affected to believe that he had been murdered. He furnished a text on which she declaimed with her usual eloquence on the dangers tc which she was herself exposed. 3 Sir Ralph Sadler's appointment had been provisional 1 Elizabeth to the Queen of Scots, March 22 April I : MSS. MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS. 2 The Queen of Scots to Eliza- beth, April 8 ; To Mauvissiere, April 9 : LABANOFF, vol. vi. a scornful play upon the words, she said she knew well with their spe- cious pleas of conscience, ' Sous les- quelles ils cachent le pur ou le put de leur intention, ascavoirl'asseurer lour monarchic dc 1'advenir par la prcsente destruction de vostre sang et legitime succession.'
 * Speaking of the Puritans, with