Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 9.djvu/483

 i57i.] THE RIDOLFI CONSPIRACY. 469 Edward was to have married a French princess : a French king had befriended the English Reformers during the Marian persecution, and in the face of the late discoveries, Elizabeth's condition appeared so ' des- perate ' to Walsingham and Burghley, that they were ready for their own part to agree to any terms ' rather than the matter should quail/ Walsingham especially ' challenged to himself no great judgment, but he said that if it proceeded not, he saw at hand the ruin of England ; 7 1 and he told Catherine that the Duke ' would be welcome there as a Temporal Messias to save them from the mischief of the civil sword/ 2 Some hundreds of letters about it were exchanged during the spring between the French and English ambassadors and their Courts and Sovereigns. The perusal of them leaves an impression that everything turned upon Elizabeth herself. Could the French Court have been satisfied that when the conditions on both sides had been drawn out and agreed to, Elizabeth would have then honestly completed the marriage, she could have asked nothing to which they would not have consented : without that preliminary certainty, they were unwilling to compromise themselves with concessions which might prove to have been made in vain. Elizabeth's ' sincerity ' that was the point. She had admitted the general arguments in favour of the marriage, but, exactly as she had done with the Arch- duke Charles, she had suddenly told Walsingham that 1 Walsingham to Burghley, May 15; MSS. France. Walsingham to Burghley, June 21 : MSS. Ibid.