Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 9.djvu/304

 REIGN OF ELIZABETH. LCH. 54. was right and just in the sight of God and man.' 1 But for the revelations in the despatches of Don Guerau, but for the evidence that he had been for years conspiring for a religious revolution and Elizabeth's overthrow, Lord Arundel might have been credited with a mistaken but still honest anxiety to extricate his mistress from her embarrassments. Elizabeth herself construed his words favourably. When the next morn- ing Leicester pressed her to give an audience to the Bishop of Ross, she answered sharply that the Queen of Scots seemed very near his heart, but she sent an order to Scotland for the recall of the army, which encountered Drury on his return to Edinburgh. Morton would gladly have detained him, at least till Grange could be compelled or persuaded to surrender the castle ; but the Queen's commands were peremptory ; he made the necessary excuses and fell back at once to Berwick. It might have been thought, as Cecil hoped and Bacon said, that Elizabeth, after inflicting punishment so tremendous on Mary Stuart's friends, would not have deceived herself with the expectation that she could recover their confidence or induce them any more to look upon her -as a friend. Had her fluctuations been assumed to cover a purpose which in her heart she had definitely formed; had she been hypocritical and de- ceitful, and not weak and uncertain, such no doubt would have been the eflFect. She would have seen that 1 This singular discussion is de- scribed by La Mothe. Depdches, vol. iii. p. 181. It was perhaps pro- tracted through several sessions, and did not all take place on the same day