Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 5.djvu/332

312 with Sir Edward Waldegrave and Sir Edward Hastings told the Queen that he would leave her service if she persisted. The seditious pamphlets which were scattered everywhere created a vague terror in the Court, and the Court ladies wept and lamented in the Queen's presence. The council in a body again urged her to abandon her intention. The Peers met again to consider the marriage articles. Gardiner read them aloud, and Lord Windsor, a dull Brutus, who till then had never been known to utter a reasonable word, exclaimed, amidst general applause, 'You have told us fine things of the Queen, and the Prince, and the Emperor; what security have we that words are more than words?' Corsairs from Brest and Rochelle hovered in the mouth of the Channel to catch the couriers going to and fro between Spain and London and Brussels, and to terrify Philip with the danger of the passage. The Duke of Suffolk's brother and the Marquis of Winchester had been heard to swear that they would set upon him when he landed; and Renard began to doubt whether the alliance, after all, was worth the risk attending it. Mary, however, brave in the midst of her perplexities, vowed that she would relinquish her hopes of Philip only with her life. An army of spies watched Elizabeth day and night, and the Emperor, undeterred by Renard's hesitation, encouraged the Queen's resolution. There could be no conspiracy