Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 9.djvu/417

15JI-] THE RIDOLFI CONSPIRACY. 403 and the bearer carried credentials from him to the King of Spain. He too, like the Queen of Scots, addressed himself in form to Bidolfi. 1 ' Such/ he said, ' is the confidence which is placed in you by the Queen of Scots, by my- self, and by others our friends in this realm, that with common consent we entrust a matter to your diligence and honesty, which touches the safety of our own lives, the welfare of this nation, and generally of the whole of Christendom. We commission you to go with all expedition, first to Rome and then to the Catholic King, that you may lay before his Holiness and his Majesty the wretched state of this island, our own particular wrongs, as I have more largely by word of mouth made them known to you, and an assured mode by which our country and ourselves can obtain relief. 'The Queen of Scots has informed you what you will say on her part. I on mine, and in the names of the larger number of the Peers of this realm the list of whom you carry with you declare our own opinions in the following words ; and we pray God to conduct you safely through your journey, and to bring you back with happy success. ' You will tell his Holiness and the King that, to all appearance, bad things will grow to worse among us, unless God of his mercy shall move them to look upon our afflictions and assist us as they may now do with ease and safety to advance the title of the Queen of 1 Instructions of the Duke of Norfolk to Robert Ridolfi : MSS. Si- mancas.