Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 9.djvu/185

 157-] THE RISING OF THE NORTH. 171 hurst, who had come there ' hunted and dismayed,' found themselves suddenly in better case than when they were at Durham, for they had a whole kingdom at their hack, 'bent to succour them.' 1 Under these circumstances, if Elizabeth intended to persist in her demand for their extradition, it might have been expected that she would have ordered her army to advance into Scotland, to help the Regent to execute her wishes. Had she been as con- scious as her ministers of the actual humour of England, she might perhaps have done so. Northumberland since his capture had spoken freely of the magnitude of the Catholic Confederacy. He had threatened the Regent with the vengeance of the whole English peerage if he gave him up ; and Lord Hunsdon, too conscious of the breadth of the disaffection, warned his mistress that the troubles were not at an end, but only beginning. * She should make no account of money.' ' If she looked not to the bottom of the matter, the sore would fester and break out worse than ever.' ' It would fall out to be the greatest conspiracy that had been in the realm for a hundred years.' 2 The Southern Catholics at that very moment, angry with themselves for their weakness, were the Qtii of January : MS 8. Border. 'The most part of the nobility,' wrote Hunsdon, ' do think it a great re- proach and ignominy to the whole country to deliver any banished men to the slaughter, accounting it a liberty and freedom to all nations to succour banished men.' Hunsdon to Elizabeth, January 13: Memorials of the Rebellion. And again : ' The Earl of Morton is bent for the main- tenance of the rebels. He does ac- count it a great shame and reproach to all the country in doing the con- trary.' Hunsdon to Cecil, January ii. 1 Hunsdon to Cecil, January 1 1 MSS. Border. 2 Hunsdon to Cecil, December 29 : MSS. Border.