Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 9.djvu/480

466 REIGN OF ELIZABETH. [CH. 56 whether lie had ever been designated by the cipher 30 Ignorant of what the Bishop of Ross had said, he an- swered that he had not. The Queen of Scots was ex- amined at great length whether she had sent any mes- sage by Ridolfi, whether she had heard from Ridolfi, and whether she was the cipher 40. She too, knowing as little as Don Gfuerau, declared boldly that she had sent no message by Ridolfi, that she had never heard from Ridolfi, and had no cipher of any kind in which she corresponded with Ridolfi. Finding however by the questions which were put to her that something had been discovered, she was ready-witted enough to say that the Bishop of Ross might have arranged a cipher in her name which she did not know ; and when Shrews- bury asked her further whether she had written to the Pope or to the King of Spain, she replied boldly, that finding herself without hope of support in England, she had written to all foreign princes for aid against her rebels. 1 But Burghley knew from the confession of Baily that more was meant than aid in Scotland. The con- tradictions in the several stories taught him to distrust them all, and he found other means, as will be seen, more successful to find the bottom of the conspiracy. The Bishop of Ross was left in imprisonment. Mary Stuart was placed under stricter guard; her servants were locked out of her apartments at night, and only allowed to return to her after daybreak. The real 1 Shrewsbury to Burghley, May 18 : MS8. QUEEN OF SCOTS.