Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 7.djvu/217

 1564-] THE EMBASSY OF DE SlLVA. 197 bassador to England again. She was delighted to find they were mistaken. Her obligations to your Majesty were deep and many, and she would show me in her treatment of myself that she had not forgotten them. ' After a few questions about your Majesty she then took me aside and inquired about the Prince, how his health was, and what his character was. She talked at length about this ; and then falling back into Italian, which she speaks remarkably well, she began again to talk of your Majesty. Your Majesty, she said, had known her when she was in trouble and sorrow. She was much altered since that time, and altered she would have me to understand much for the better/ Some unimportant conversation followed and de Silva took his leave, Lord Darnley again waiting upon him to his barge. A postscript was added in cipher : ' An intimate friend of Lord Robert Dudley has just been with me. I understand from him that Lord Robert was on bad terms with Cecil before the late book on the succession appeared, and that now the enmity between them is deeper than ever, because he takes Cecil to have been the author of it. 1 The Queen is furious, but there are so many accomplices in the business that she has been obliged to drop the prosecution. This gentleman, although he desires me to be careful how I mention Lord Robert's name, yet entreats me at the same time to lose 1 Lord Robert hoped that if the Queen of Scots was recognized as heir to the throne after Elizabeth and her children, the country would waive the objection to himself in the desire to see the Queen married.