Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 7.djvu/472

 452 -KEIGN OF ELIZABE TIL [CH. 45. lady and her husband Lord Hertford are Protestants ; c*nd a large number, probably an actual majority of the Commons, being heretics also, will declare for her in self-defence. ' I have never ceased to urge upon the Queen the in- convenience and danger to which she will be exposed if a successor is declared, and on the other hand her perfect security as soon as she has children of her own. She understands all this fully, and she told me three days ago that she would never consent. The Parliament, she said, had offered her two hundred and fifty thousand pounds as the price of her acquiescence ; but she had refused to accept anything on conditions. She had re- quested a subsidy for the public service in Ireland and elsewhere, and it should be given freely and graciously or not at all. She says she will not yield one jot to them let them do what they will ; she means to dis- semble with them and hear what they have to say, so that she may know their views, and the lady which each declares for 1 meaning the Queen of Scots and Lady Catherine. I told her that if she would but marry, all this worry would be at an end. She assured me she would send this very week to the Emperor and settle everything ; and yet I learn from Sir Thomas Heneage, who is the person hitherto most concerned in the Arch- duke affair, that she has grown much cooler about it. ' The members of the Lower House are almost all Protestants, and seeing the Queen in such a rage at ' For conocer las voluntaries y saber la dama de cada uno.'