Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 9.djvu/416

 402 REIGN OF ELIZABETH. [CH. 55. was the chosen of Heaven, a woman after God's heart, like the David to whom her defenders compared her. It was true that Elizabeth had protected her honour and had saved her life saved her when all parties in Scotland would have shaken hands over her grave saved her when the wisest of the English council be- lieved that her life had a second time been forfeited. It was true, as Elizabeth said, that no sovereign in Europe would have shown the forbearance which she had shown to a pretender to her crown. Yet benefits, when undeserved, are but added injuries ; and rage, hatred, jealousy, the thousand passions which failure upon failure had aggravated to madness, explain en- tirely the desperate course upon which the imprisoned Queen was now venturing. .Far different was the position of the Duke of Nor- folk. Norfolk knew Mary Stuart's story, and never pretended to believe her the suffering innocent which her friends now represented her to be. Norfolk was Elizabeth's subject, but lately pardoned by her for of- fences for which her father would have made short work with him. Bound to her by the most solemn promises, which on the moment when he made them he had determined to break, and without even the poor pretext of religion to invest his treason with spurious sanctity Norfolk's instructions come next. Whether written by himself matters little. He denied them, but the evidence of their substantial authenticity is too strong to be shaken by his own tainted word. They were read over in his presence and approved by him,