Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 7.djvu/448

 428 REIGN OF ELIZABETH. [CH. 45 out of the tomb and waved the lovers once more asun- der. 1 Thus the season passed on ; summer came, and James's birth found Elizabeth as far from marriage as ever ; Parliament had been once more postponed, but the public service could be conducted no longer without a subsidy, and a meeting at Michaelmas was inevitable. Scarcely was Mary Stuart delivered and the child's sex made known, than Sir James Melville was in the saddle. The night of the I9th he slept at Berwick; on the evening of the 22nd he rode into London. A grand party was going forward at Greenwich : the Queen was in full force and spirit, and the Court in its summer splendour. A messenger glided through the crowd and spoke to Cecil; Cecil whispered to his mistress, and Elizabeth flung herself into a seat, dropped her head upon her hand, and exclaimed ' The Queen of Scots is the mother of a fair son, and I am but a barren stock.' Bitter words!- how bitter those only knew who had watched her in the seven years' struggle between pas- sion and duty. She could have borne it better perhaps had her own scheme been carried out for a more complete self-sacri- fice, and had Leicester been the father of the future king. Then at least she would have seen her darling honoured and great ; then she would have felt secure of 1 It was probably at this time Appleyard made his confession that ' he had covered his sister's murder,' and that Sir Thomas Blount was secretly examined by the council. There is little room for doubt that <" the menace of exposure was the in- strument made use of to prevent Elizabeth from ruining herself.- See cap. 39.