Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 11.djvu/62

 REIGN OF ELIZABETH. [CH. 63. This interview took place four years later than the events which are now to be described, when the passions of the priests had been exasperated by the persecution as it was termed of the Jesuit missionaries, and when the hopes of regicides had just been stimulated by the accomplished assassination of the Prince of Orange. When allowance has been made however for these influences, the story throws a definite light upon the character of the men with whom Elizabeth and her ministers had to deal. The disposition of an organized party is not changed in a day or a year. The Pope who had blessed the murder of Coligny, who from the day of his accession had laboured unremittingly to stimulate a crusade against England, who had landed a Nuncio and an armed force commissioned from himself in Ireland, and who, when his efforts had all failed, gave his sanction to the darker method of cutting through the difficulty, cannot be credited with more innocent intentions in the interval ; and the Jesuits were Catholics, for it might be it served not for all men's appetites, and therefore we were to use great dis- cretion.' Falling afterwards into the hands of the priests, Tyrrell published a recantation, and wrote to the Queen to say that his story was an inven- tion. See Strype, Annals, vol. iii. part 2, p. 425. The following year he reasserted what he had before stated; withdrew his recantation ' wherein he had repeated for false- hood that which he had bonS fide uttered,' and promised so to confirm the original narrative, ' that neither fear nor flattery should cause him to deny it again.' Annals, vol. iii. part I, p. 698. The words which he places in the Pope's mouth, agree exactly with the message sent from Rome to Dr Parry, through the Cardinal of Como. See Parry's trial. State Trials, vol. i.