Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 7.djvu/351

 4565.] THE DARNLEV MARRIAGE. 331 Every member of the council was summoned to Lon- don. The suspected Earls of Cumberland, Westmore- land, and Northumberland were invited to the Court, to remove them from the Border where they would perhaps T}e dangerous ; and day after day the advisers of the 'Crown sat in earnest and inconclusive deliberation. A lucid statement was drawn up of Mary Stuart's proceed- ings from the day of Elizabeth's accession ; every aggres- sive act on her part, every conciliatory movement of the 'Queen of England, w,ere laid out in careful detail to assist the council in forming a judgment ; the history was brought down to the latest moment, and one only im- portant matter seems to have been withheld the unfor- tunate promises which Elizabeth had made to the Earl of Murray and his friends at a time when she believed that a demonstration in Scotland would be sufficient to frighten Mary Stuart, and that she would never be called on to fulfil them. In favour of sending assistance to the Protestant noblemen, it was urged that the Queen of Scots notori- ously intended to overthrow the reformed religion, and to make her way to the English throne ; the title of the Queen of England depended on the Reformation ; if the Pope's authority was restored she would no longer be regarded as legitimate^. To sit still in the face of the attitude which the Queen of Scots had assumed was to encourage her to continue her practices ; and it was more prudent to encounter an enemy when it could be done at small cost and in her own country than to wait to be overtaken at home by war and rebellion which would be a thousand times more dangerous and costly.