Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 7.djvu/202

 Ib2 kElGN OF ELIZABETH. jcri. 43. favourable change in Don Carlos, had not yet deter- mined that the marriage must be given up, the Queen of Scots knew enough to prevent her from feeling san- guine of obtaining him. It became necessary for he; to consider whether she could make anything out of the English overtures. Elizabeth's attitude towards her was in the main honourable and statesmanlike. The name of a successor, as she said herself, was like the tolling of her death-bell. In her sister's lifetime she had experienced how an heir- presumptive with an inalienable right became inevitably a rallying point of disaffection. She did not trust the Queen of Scots, and if she allowed her pretensions to bq sanctioned by Act of Parliament she anticipated neglect, opposition perhaps worse. But of assassination she could scarcely be in greater danger than she was already; and if she could induce Mary to meet her half way in some moderate policy, and if the Queen of Scots, instead of marrying a Catholic prince and allying herself with the revolutionary Ultramontanes, would accept an Eng- lish nobleman of whose loyalty to herself she could feel assured, she was ready to sacrifice her personal unwill- ingness to what she believed to be the interest of her people. There could then be no danger that England would be sacrificed to the Papacy. Some tolerant creed could be established which Catholics might accept with- out offence to their consciences, and Protestants could live under without persecution ; while the resolution of the two factions into neutrality, if not into friendship, the union of the crowns, and the confidence which would