Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 9.djvu/453

 157L] THE RIDOLFI CONSPIRACY. 43$ ambition to a crown had once entered, such was its nature that it could never be satisfied/ Sir Francis Knowles informed the Commons, that the words, ' had already laid claim/ were carefully considered by the council before the Bill was introduced, ' and were more than requisite, yea, more than convenient/ 'To stay or prevent devices past he thought it but honest policy/ Another bold speaker said that ' to pretend the Queen was not Queen might fairly be called treason, but to make it treason to call her heretic, infidel, or schisma- tic, was unreasonable. Catholics necessarily considered her a heretic, unless they confessed themselves to be heretics, or unless her Majesty, as some people thought, was at heart a Catholic herself ; there were those who said the Established doctrines were her councillors' and not her own ; and if the words to which he objected were allowed to stand, he would introduce another, and vote it treason to call her infidel, Papist, or heretic/ Elizabeth's wishes in the matter appear nowhere, except as they may be supposed to have been repre- sented by Knowles ; and Knowles himself had more than once lamented that Elizabeth did not always think with her council. She liked to be able to tell foreign ambassadors that she disapproved of Cecil, that she valued and loved the Catholics, that she had not inter- fered and would not interfere with the prospective claims of Mary Stuart on the crown. In the end each side yielded something. The Act passed, but the con- templated offences were made to date from thirty days after the close of the Parliament, and if Eidolfi made