Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 7.djvu/493

 : 5 66.] THE MURDER OF DARNLE Y. 473 remains to show what the Commons intended ; and either they despaired of prevailing on the Queen to accept the grant while such a prelude was linked to it, and were unwilling to embarrass the public service ; or they preferred another expedient to which they trusted less objection might be raised : the preamble at all events was abandoned ; they substituted for it a general expression of gratitude for the promise to marry, and sent the Bill to the Lords on the iyth of December. Meanwhile on the 5th a measure was introduced which, if less effective in the long run for the protection of the Reformation than the declaration of a Protestant successor, would have ended at once the ambiguity of the religious position of Elizabeth. The Thirty-nine Articles, strained and cracked by three centuries of eva- sive ingenuity, scarcely embarrass now the feeblest of consciences. The clergyman of the nineteenth century subscribes them with such a smile as might have been worn by Samson when his Philistine mistress bound his arms with the cords and withes. In the first years of Elizabeth they were the symbols by which the orthodox Protestant was distinguished from the concealed Catholic. The liturgy with purposed ambiguity could be used by and the evidence on the Rolls that the will was accepted and acted on, this is nothing. It was his will whether signed or not, and so far as legacies, etc., were concerned, such as he had power to make by the common law, so far it might be acted on. But in so far as the suc- cession was concerned, it was invalid, because the form prescribed by the empowering statute, 35 Hen. VIII., had not been observed.' Answer to Mr Hales' Book of the Succession, December, 1566: Domestic MS., Elizabeth, vol. xli.