Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 9.djvu/335

 1570.] EXCOMMUNICATION OF ELIZABETH. 321 ning to advise her destruction, nor meant at any time ill to her person. A month after the late Hegent ac- cepted office I dealt earnestly with him to accord with the Queen. From first to last I have laboured always that the matter should be taken up by accord/ l The high ground of moral abstraction was pleasant to Sussex. He burnished up the rusty weapons of his school days, pelting his adversary with logical formulas, and fastening upon his heretical views of good and evil. He ran over the various steps which had been taken by the party of which Maitland had been a member. ' To depose a Sovereign/ he said, ( was a serious matter, not to be taken up lightly and laid aside because times were changed. Alteration on such a point was not wisdom but frivolous mutabili cation, unless indeed the cause alleged for the deposition had been discovered to be false. He desired to be satisfied whether Mait- land thought it ivas false. 'What your party did in England/ he continued, ' tended not to a short restraint of your Queen, but was directly either to deliver her captive into your own custodies or to bind the Queen to detain her so as she should never trouble Scotland more. If her captivity or a worse matter was meant, God and your own con- science do know, only this I am sure, that if her Ma- jesty would have digested that which was openly de- livered unto her by the general consent of your whole company, in such sort as ye all desired, advised, and 1 Maitland to Sussex, July 16, condensed : MSS. Scotland. vol. '.x. 21