Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 9.djvu/111

 1569.] THE RISING OF THE NORTH. 97 prisoner at Tutbury floated ominously in the air, haunt- ing her dreams and perplexing her waking thoughts. The ingenuity with which she had tempted Murray to produce the casket had failed of its purpose. The peers, as well as the council, had seen the damning proofs of Mary Stuart's guilt ; not one among them had pre- tended to believe her innocent ; yet so terrible to the mind of England was the memory of York and Lan- caster, that, to escape a second war of succession, they were ready to condone the crimes of the second person in the realm ; and one of them, the highest subject in the land, was willing to take the murderess to his bed. It was too late now for Elizabeth to throw herself upon the world's conscience, publish the letters, and declare her rival infamous. The peers, who for very shame in the past winter would have been compelled to consent, would now refuse to set their hands to her. condemna- tion, and a proclamation unsupported by names which would be open to no suspicion, would no longer carry conviction to the people. In August, chafed by the demands of the Court of France, irritated at the ferment at the Court, and at the consciousness that half her present vexations were her own work, through her refusal to marry the Archduke ; half regretting, now when it was too late, that she had thrown away an opportunity which would have pacified legitimate discontent, 1 she was on the point of making 1 ' If the Queen's Majesty had in time married with the Archduke Charles, wherein you write she now uttereth her disposition, it had been the better way for her surety. But that mattex hath been so handled as VOL. IX.