Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 7.djvu/238

 2i8 REIGN- OF ELIZABETH. [CH. 43. but I am young and lie is young and therefore we have been slandered. God knows they do us grievous wrong, and the time will come when the world will know it also. I do not live in a corner a thousand eyes see all that I do and calumny will not fasten on ine for ever/ ' She went on to speak of the Queen of Scots, whose beauty she warmly praised. ' ' Some tell me/ she said, ' that my sister will marry your Prince after all/ ' I laughed and said that the last story which I had heard was that the Queen of Scots was to marry the King of France. 1 She said that could not be, ' The Queen-mother and the Queen of Scots were not good friends/ ' The Lord Robert, whom they now call Earl of Leicester, has been with me again repeating his protest- ations of a desire to be of use to your Majesty. He mentioned particularly the troubles in the Low Coun- tries and the necessity of taking steps to pacify them. 'I assured him of the confidence which your Ma- jesty felt in his integrity and of the desire which you entertained for his advancement. I repeated the words which the Queen had used to me about religion ; and I said that now when she was so well disposed there was an opportunity for him which he should not allow to escape. If the Queen could make up her mind to marry him and to reunite England to the Catholic Church your Majesty would stand by him, and he should soon experience the effects of your Majesty's good- will towards him ; the Queen's safety should be perfectly