Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 9.djvu/57

 1569-] ENGLISH PARTIES. 43 France would still act with Alva France, with whom but lately Norfolk had invited Elizabeth to go to war. They desired him to advise his Government to send in a bill of injuries as large as they could possibly make it ; and they suggested that some Italian troops, whom the Pope had sent to France to assist in putting down the Huguenots, should be quartered in Normandy, as if for action in England. All this was not very chivalrous. 'They are the most cautious people in the world/ Don Guerau wrote to Alva, ' They will do nothing unless we help them and show the way.' Yet their scheme might be worth executing, he thought, in default of braver measures. ' If your Excellency's ships,' he said, ' can but catch this rich prize, it will be the conquest of the Island.' Hard language about men whose work for good or ill has been long past should have no place in history. It is enough to relate what they did with such allow- ance as the circumstances and passions of the time can suggest. Yet, if treason has a meaning treason to the State, which is worse than treason to the person of the sovereign these noblemen, who deliberately for their own purposes plotted the ruin of English com- merce, deserved whatever penalty law or justice could demand against them. Norfolk's guilt especially was rendered deeper by the treachery with which, at the same time, he was playing with the honour of Murray and the loyalty of Pembroke. As the plot thickened the Catholics throughout England made ready for the conflict. They sent Don Guerau word, that with ike