Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 9.djvu/537

 157I-] THE RIDOLFI CONSPIRACY. &$ fortunes of the two parties which divided Scotland. On the fall of Dumbarton and the ineffectual close of the London Conference, the civil war broke again into a blaze. War, in a large sense, it could not be called, but a general breaking down of all order and authority, the parties which respectively called themselves subjects of the King or Queen flying at each other's throats, burn- ing each other's houses, and indulging, under the pre- tence of loyalty, their private hates and feuds. Neither France nor England could openly interfere. The mar- riage project made them unwilling to quarrel ; and till that marriage was accomplished, they were equally un- able to act in concert. At the same time, neither cared to desert their friends entirely ; and thus both sides were encouraged with promises and fed with money. King's party and Queen's party were called to the field, and one could not overwhelm the other; and the hopeless struggle was varied only by some gallant achievement like the storming of Dumbarton. Had Elizabeth re- solved from the beginning, as she had now resolved at last, to keep Mary Stuart prisoner had she supported Murray had she allowed Sussex to take Edinburgh Castle still more, had she recognized James not only as King in his own country, but as her own prospective hoir she would have added nothing to the danger of her position with the European Powers, and the peace of Scotland would never have been disturbed. The set- tlement in James's favour was the one step which, be- yond question, she ought to have taken, and which she only did not take from the peculiar perversity of tern.-