Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 9.djvu/321

I570-] EXCOMMUNICATION OF ELIZABETH. 37 pleased the King his master as the late declaration. 1 It must not be supposed that either the King or Alva cared at all for Elizabeth herself. Yet the Duke's private correspondence with Philip shows that both of them were sincerely desirous to avoid a collision with her. 2 They distrusted the accounts which they re- ceived from the sanguine Catholics in England. 'I am afraid of Don Guerau,' the Duke wrote frankly to Alava. ' I cannot satisfy myself that he understands those English. I am doing what I can for the Queen of Scots. My master expressly desires me to assist her ; but his wish is that the two Queens should be recon- ciled, and that both should feel themselves under an obligation to himself. I am trying all the fords in the stream, but I can find none that I like/ 3 With Spain in this humour and the Huguenots re- stored to favour in France, the political objections to the release of the Queen of Scots might be supposed to have been removed, or at least materially diminished. Yet Bacon and Cecil remained unshaken in their dis- like. The winds shifted too rapidly, and the sky was still too threatening for the present calm to be relied upon. Elizabeth herself, with the instinct of prophecy, foretold that the peace in France would not last ; that it would end in a year or two in some desperate attempt to exterminate the Protestants, and that war with Eng- 1 The message was sent through Sir Henry Norris, Elizabeth's Min- ister at Paris. Norris to the Queen, July 9 : MSS. France. 2 Correspondance de Philippe II. March and August, 1570, torn. ii. 3 The Duke of Alva to Don Francis de Alava, July 29 : TEULET, vol. v.