Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 9.djvu/536

 $2* REIGN OF ELIZABETH. [en. 56. grew too strong for them. The exigencies of history compel us to follow in single lines the many threads of which the situation was made up. London, Paris, Brussels, Home, Madrid we have had to transport ourselves from one to the other, while at each and all, at the same time, the warp and the woof of Elizabeth's destiny were forming. We have watched the English Parliament at home labouring for the cause of God and freedom. "We have seen Philip's Cabinet planning murder, in the cause also, as they believed, of God and Holy Church ; while Cecil and "Walsingham were struggling desperately to bind England and France together, and the Queen was choosing the edge of the precipice to execute her matrimonial coquet dance. Dungeons have been thrown open, where wretched prisoners were yielding their secrets to the rack, 1 or cheated out of them by the midnight visits of pre- tended friends. And, last of all, we have seen the Catholic King and his Council of State becoming the dupes of a buccaneering adventurer. All these scenes were going on together; while Cecil had his eyes everywhere, conscious or unconscious that on him, and on what he could do, the fate of England and its Queen depended. It remains to observe, during the same months, the 1 Charles Baily Avas not the only sufferer. Hall, Sir Thomas Stanley's friend, who was taken at Dumbar- ton, was made to tell .what he knew by the same means. The Queen and Cecil ordered Sir "William Drury to submit a series of questions to him, adding, ' Let him look to be racked to all extremity if he will conceal the truth.' Elizabeth to Sir William Drury, May 20, Cecil's hand : MSS. /Scotland.