Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 9.djvu/237

 i 5 fo. ] EXCOMMUN1CA T1ON OF ELIZA BE TH. 223 the Queen to be taken off by an assassin as Murray had been, there was no force anywhere which could save the country from immediate and universal anarchy. Conscious of her danger, and conscious, as she re- covered her equanimity, that she must find some better guarantee for her safety than the hanging of landless labourers and poor artisans, Elizabeth drew up an ad- dress to her subjects, in which she explained the prin- ciples of her past government, and appealed to their consciences to say whether on the whole she had de- served their disaffection. The thoughts were her own, the language in part or wholly was Cecil's. 1 A printed copy was sent to every parish in England, to be hung up in some public place where every one could see it, and read aloud in service-time from the pulpit. She spoke briefly of the insurrection. She thanked her people for their general loyalty ; but ' for their better understanding/ she desired to add some few words of reply to the calumnies which were spread abroad against her administration. ' She had desired/ she said, 'to have the obedience of her subjects by love and not by compulsion, by their own yielding and not by her exacting: she had never sought the life, the blood, the goods, the houses, estates, or lands of any person in her dominions : ' she had been careful for the maintenance of order and law, yet with so little severity that ' the Judges had in no age before given fewer 1 The MS. is corrected through- out in Cecil's hand. The hody of it had heen probably written at his dictation by a secretary. Domestic MS8. y 1569, 1579. Eolk House.