Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 7.djvu/225

 THE EMBASSY OF DE SILVA. 20S left the University with the first sense of pleasure which she had experienced in the ecclesiastical administration. Alas ! for the imperfection of human things. The rash- ness of a few boys marred all. Elizabeth had been entreated to remain one more evening to witness a play which the students had got up among themselves for her amusement. Having a long journey before her the following day, and desiring to sleep ten miles out of Cambridge to relieve the dis- tance, she had been unwillingly obliged to decline. The students, too enamoured of their performance to lose the chance of exhibiting it, pursued the Queen to her resting-place. She was tired, but she would not discourage so much devotion, and the play commenced. The actors entered on the stage in the dress of the imprisoned Catholic bishops. Each of them was distin- guished by some symbol suggestive of the persecution. Bonner particularly carried a lamb in his arms at which he rolled his eyes and gnashed his teeth. A dog brought up the rear with the host in his mouth. Elizabeth could have better pardoned the worst insolence to herself: she rose, and with a few indignant words left the room ; the lights were extinguished, and the discomfited players had to find their way out of the house in the dark, and to blunder back to Cambridge. 1 It was but a light matter, yet it served to irritate 1 De Silva to the Duchess of Parma, August 19 : MS. Simancas. De Silva was not present, but de- scribed the scene as he heard it from an eye-witness. The story naturally enough is not mentioned by Nicolls, who details with great minuteness the sunny side of the visit to tho University : / rogresses of Elizabeth, 1564.