Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 7.djvu/373

 1565.] THE DARNLEY MARRIAGE. 353 the arts to which she condescended ; and she was about to find that after all the paths of honour were the paths of safety, and that she could liave chosen no weapon more dangerous to herself than the chicanery of which she considered herself so accomplished a mistress. She had mistaken the nature of English and Scottish gentle- men in supposing that they would be the instruments of a disgraceful policy, and she had done her rival cruel wrong in believing that she could be duped with arti- fices so poor. ' Send as many ambassadors as you please to our Queen/ said Sir William Kirkaldy to Bedford ; l they shall receive a proud answer. She thinks to have a force as soon ready as you do, besides the hope she has to have friendship in England. If force of men and ships come not with the ambassadors, their coming and travail shall be spent in vain/ 1 Even Cecil perhaps now deplored the . ., . TI November. enects 01 his own timidity. I have received, wrote Bedford to him, 'your .gentle and sorrowful letter. It grieveth me that things will frame no better. The evil news will be the overthrow of three hundred gentlemen of Scotland that are zealous and serviceable/ Too justly Bedford feared that the Scotch Protestants in their resentment would ' become the worst enemies that England ever had ; ' too clearly he saw that Eliza- beth by her miserable trifling had ruined her truest friends ; that however anxious she might be for peace 1 Kirkaldy to Bedford, October 31 : Scotch MSS. Bolls House. VOL. vn. 23