Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 7.djvu/107

 1 563-] THE ENGLISH A T HA VRE. 87 betli to interfere with Mary Stuart's marriage ? As much right, it may be answered, as Mary Stuart had to pre- tend to the succession of the English crown. Those who aspire to sovereignty must accept the conditions under which sovereignty can be held. The necessities of State which at the present day bar the succession of a Roman Catholic, were stronger a thousandfold when a Catholic sovereign might bring back with her the fires of Smith- field: and the fault of Elizabeth was rather in for- bearing to insist upon a change of creed than in being willing to accept a successor with a less effective security for her harmlessness. Nor was it Elizabeth only who had a right to be alarmed. Murray, Argyle, and Maitland had been led astray by vanity and idle ambition. In their eagerness to give a sovereign to England they had half lost their interest in the Reformation, or had closed their eyes to the dangers to which they exposed it. But there were those in Scotland to whom the truth of God was more than crowns and kingdoms to whom the re- volution which had passed over their country was too precious to be fooled away by courtiers' weakness or a woman's cunning. Knox knew as well as Mary knew the fruit which would follow if she married a Catholic prince. He had laboured to save Murray from the spell which his sister had flung over him ; but Murray had only been angry at his interference, and ' they spake not together familiarly for more than a year and a half/ 1 1 KNOX'S History of the Eef or motion.