Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 9.djvu/292

278 REIGN OF ELIZABETH. [CH. 54. observance, would suffice for England ; but Elizabeth, in decency as well as prudence, had to insist also on other stipulations for the internal government of Scot- land. The Bishop of Hoss seemed to be inclined to yield to anything which might be demanded ; and the negotiations had begun to make progress, when they were interrupted by the appearance of two pamphlets, which had been printed on the Continent, and had been brought over and circulated in London. They were both written by the Bishop. The first was the celebrated treatise already alluded to ' in defence of Queen Mary's honour/ The other was a genealogical statement of her claims upon the English Crown. The latter contained nothing on which a complaint could be founded. The subject was an extremely dangerous one, but the Queen of Scots' pedigree was a public fact which could not be disputed. The former was a plea of l not guilty ' to the charge that she had murdered Darnley. The Bishop had no more doubt of her complicity, as he afterwards ad- mitted, than the rest of the world. Even in his defence he argued that, supposing the charges to be true, she was no worse than David, and David had not been de- posed. But the mutilated shape in which Elizabeth had let the investigation close, enabled him to say that her conduct had been inquired into, and that she had not been found guilty, and he had added that the English nobility generally regarded her as innocent. The two publications and their composition formed part of a scheme which had been secretly arranged with the Catholics, but unhappily the Bishop was premature.