Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 9.djvu/535

 157I-] THE RIDOLFI CONSPIRACY. 521 treachery was but meeting treachery. The Queen, of Scots, on the whole, held better cards than Elizabeth, and but for Cecil, the Queen of Scots would probably have won, and Chapin's poniard and Alva's legions might have given another complexion to English history. The Queen of Scots' iniquities would then have stood out in the relief of success. The pity would have been for Elizabeth, the moral censure for her more lucky rival. In this and all such conditions, our praise and our blame are alike impertinent, for it is impossible to apportion them fairly. The rules which insist on truth and candour between man and man and Government and Government, apply only to quiet, or at least to honourable ages. Wars and treasons and conspiracies derange the natural relation of things, and bring about situations where other balances are re- quired. The baser crimes which spring from selfish- ness and cowardice are hideous in every time and place : but Hamlet is not condemned for rewriting his uncle's packet, because Shakespeare, in the fulness of genius, places the facts before us with all their surroundings. Let the reader exert his imagination to call up before him the situation of Elizabeth and her minister, and he will be sparing of his outcries in proportion to the vigour of his thought. The anticipation that the year 1571 would prove a critical one in the fortunes of England was entirely verified. The Ridolfi conspiracy was the last combined effort of the English aristocracy to undo the Reforma- tion and strangle the new order of things before it