Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 7.djvu/103

 1563-3 THE ENGLISH AT HA VRE. wrote, ' and answered bravely when I spoke to him. He was grieved to end his services at a moment when he hoped to be of use. His last words were, ' I can do no more.' ' 1 So died a good servant of a falling cause faith- ful even unto death. The Bishop of Aquila had the character of his race and his profession. In the arts of diplomatic treachery he was an accomplished master. Untiring and unscrupulous, skilled in the subtle wind- ings of the heart, he could stimulate the conscience into heroism, or play with its weakness till he had tempted it to perdition as suited best with the ends which he pursued with the steadiness of a sleuthhound. He would converse in seeming frankness from day to day with those whom with his whole soul he was labouring to blast into ruin. Yet he was brave as a Spaniard should bebrave with the double courage of an Ignatius and a Cortez. He was perfectly free from selfish and igno- ble desires, and he was loyal with an absolute fealty to his creed and his King. It was his misfortune that he served in a cause which the world now knows to have been a wrong cause; but qualifications in themselves neither better nor worse than those of Alvarez de Quadra won for Walsingham a place in the brightest circle of English statesmen. How it might have fared with Mary Stuart and Don Carlos had de Quadra lived to complete tiie work for which he was so anxious, the curious in such things puedo mas.' Memoir of Luis de Paz : MS. Simancas.