Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 9.djvu/402

 388 REIGN OF ELIZABETH, [CH. 55. The Duchess was an English woman. The refugees were thought to belong to the Feria faction, and there- fore Alva hated them. Every heretic spy found more favour in his eyes than they did. ' Finally and especially, the consciences of all Chris- tians were shocked at the indifference which the King of Spain had displayed to the sentence of excommuni- cation. It was treated as if it had no existence. The Catholics everywhere were lost in astonishment, and could but remember with fear the words of the Gospel, ' woe to that man by whom the offence corneth.' ' The Christian faith was decaying. A princess gifted with the most exquisite graces of mind and per- son was sinking under the accumulated weight of ill- usage and undeserved infamy ; the Catholic King himself, the pillar of the faith, was allowing his honour and reputation to be discredited in the world by the wrongs to which he was submitting at the hands of a bad woman. 1 Would it then be of service/ the Bishop asked, ' if he was himself to repair to Spain and lay the truth before his Majesty ? To reform England and to extin- guish the faction of the King in Scotland were one and the same thing ; and both were so necessary, that as long as they remained undone heresy would scarcely be extinguished in the Low Countries. The English Catholics had placed their whole confidence in the King ; the Holy See implored him to act ; God himself had marked him out for the work by the power which he had trusted in his hands. If he would not declare