Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 10.djvu/192

172 REIGN OF ELIZABETH. [011.58. felt nothing for them but increasing repugnance, 1 and, can imagine why ; all advances from that quarter are suspect, because of the massacre. They are taken as an invitation to a second Paris banquet. ' Separate yourself from the Court. While you remain there no one here will speak for you. Let them see that you have taken the bit in your teeth, that you will have no more so do with the tyrants. All will then go well. Take up the cause of the Gospel, and England will stand by you, and so will your noble countrymen. ' To the day of the massacre Ma- dame de Lisle was all that was favourable. She changed and cooled afterwards; nor has she any one now to advise her to think of you. Con- vince her of your innocence ; show that you will be the protector of the Protestants, and they will pray you then to come to them, and you will give the law to Christendom. Ger- many is arming. The English are volunteering to serve with the Hu- guenots. The living God calls you. Fear not to fall between two stools, le cul d terre. There is nothing for you to fear. If a poor Prince of Orange and a Count Louis have achieved so much, what may not be ione by a Due d'Alenqon, a son and brother of a King ? who leaves his own country because he will not be an accomplice in the most unworthy deed, the most vile and monstrous atrocity, of which the annals of the world contain a record,' &c. The letter is in French, the writer unknown. Evidently he had been really in England, and had really talked with the Queen. It appears from a letter of Leicester's to Wal- singham of the 8th of January, that ' the Queen was loath to discredit Alenc,on, and was borne in hand that her love for him was great.' DIGGES. Walsingham. however thought that ' it was a dangerous practice not to be meddled with.' And Burghley took the same view. On the desirableness of the marriage generally, however, he remained of his old opinion. Writing on the 20th of March, he said that France would certainly attack England when its own troubles were composed, but that the Queen would adhere to the league till France broke it. 'As to the marriage,' he went on, ' I see the imminent peril to the State, the succession to the crown so manifestly prejudicial to the state of religion, that I cannot but persist in seeking marriage for her Majesty, and find- ing no way that is liking to her but this with the Duke, I force myself to pursue it with desire.' MSS. France, Rolls House. 1 Lord Westmoreland continued to say that if Alva would land in Northumberland he would himself undertake that ten thousand men would join him. Alva's character is curiously marked in a conversation on the subject which another Eng- lish gentleman, whom he consulted, reported to Cecil: ' His Excellency asked me/ says this person, ' what as-