Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 7.djvu/203

 1564. THE EMBASSY OF DE SILVA. arise from a secured succession, were objects with which private inclination could not be allowed to interfere. Elizabeth had made the offer in good faith, with a sin- cere hope that it would be accepted, and with a fair ground of confidence that with the conditions which she had named the objections of the House of Commons to the Queen of Scots would be overcome. Even in the person whom in her heart she desired Mary to marry, Elizabeth was giving an evidence of the honesty of her intentions. Lord Robert Dudley was per- .', haps the most worthless of her subjects ; but in the loving eyes of his mistress he was the knight sans peur et sans reproche ; and she took a melancholy pride in offer- ing her sister her choicest jewel, and in raising Dudley, though she could not marry him herself, to the rever- sion of the English throne. She had not indeed named Lord Robert formally in Randolph's commission. She had spoken of him to e. Maitland, but she had spoken also of the Earl of War- wick ; and she perhaps retained some hope that if Mary would be contented with the elder brother she might still keep her favourite for herself. 1 But if she enter- 1 Randolph himself seems to have thought something of the kind. On the 2 ist of January, before the peace with France, he wrote to Elizabeth : ' The French have heard through M. de Foix of your Majesty's intent, and the Cardinal of Guise is set to hinder it. He writes to the Queen of Scots to beware of your Majesty, that you mean nothing less than good faith with her ; and that it proceedeth of finesse to make her believe that you intend her good, or that her honour shall be any way advanced by marriage of anything so base as either my Lord Robert or Earl of Warwick, of which two your Majesty is determined to take the one and to give her the other. Though this whole matter be not