Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 7.djvu/480

 4ta REIGN OF ELIZABETH. [en. 45. make long prayers about this business. One of you dared to say, in times past, that I and my sister were bastards ; and you must needs be interfering in what does not concern you. Go home and amend your own lives, and set an honest example in your families. The Lords in Parliament should have taught you to know your places ; but if they have forgotten their duty I will not forget mine. Bid I so choose I might make the impertinence of the whole set of you an excuse to with- draw my promise to marry ; but for the realm's sake, T am resolved that I will marry ; and I will take a husband that will not be to the taste of some of you. I have not married hitherto out of consideration for you, but it shall be done now, and you who have been so urgent with me will find the effects of it to your cost. Think you the prince who will be my consort will feel himself safe with such as you, who thus dare to thwart and cross your natural Queen ? ' She turned on her heel and sailed out of the hall of audience, vouchsafing no other word. At once she sent for de Silva, and after profuse thanks to himself and Philip for their long and steady kindness, swelling with anger as she was, she gave him to understand that her course was chosen at last and for ever ; she would accept the Archduke and would be all which Spain could desire. Many of the peers came to her in the evening to make their excuses : they said that they had been mis- led by the council, who had been the most in favour of the address ; and they had believed themselves to be acting as she had herself desired. The Upper House