Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 7.djvu/414

 394 REIGN OF ELIZABETH. [CH. 44. some kind, for Mary Stuart, as soon as she was emanci- pated from the first thraldom of the Puritans, recalled him, took him into favour, and appointed him one of the Court preachers. He had better have remained in Northumberland. A citizen encountered him a little before Christmas in some room or passage where he should not have been. He received ' two or three blows with a cudgel and one with a dagger/ and had been since unable to leave his bed. While Edinburgh was shuddering over the scene in the palace, a brother or husband who had matter against the chaplain the same perhaps who had stabbed him finished his work, and murdered the wounded wretch where he lay. 1 In the morning at daybreak a proclamation went out in the King's name that the Parliament was_ post- poned, and that ' all bishops, abbots, and Papists should depart the town7 Murray was expected in a few hours ; "no one knew how deep or how far the con- spiracy had gone, and the Catholics, uncertain what to do, offered no resistance. What_was to be done with the Queen was the next difficulty. They had caged their bird, but it might be less easy to hold her ; and if they believed the Queen was crushed or broken, the conspirators knew little of the temper which they had undertaken to control: sleeping behind jhat_grace of form and charm of manner there lay a^piritjwhich no misfortune could tame a nature like a panther's, mer- ciless and beautiful and along with it every dexterous Randolph to Cecil, March 13 : Scotch MSS. Rolls House.