Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 10.djvu/206

1 86 REIGA r OF ELIZABETH. [CH. 58. Leicester showed her Burghley's letter, which was ex- pressed so powerfully that it frightened her, and she said she would ' stick at nothing/ But still, -to every distinct suggestion she did but raise objections, when every moment was precious, when ' hours were days, and days were years, and too many were gone already/ Leicester ventured to say ' that never prince had been better advised than she ; that she could now perceive how well it was for princes to trust faithful and known councillors ; ' that if she had but listened to one among them all ' the trouble like to happen would not have been . possible/ But his words were wasted. She had fallen into one of her periodic fits of tenderness about the Queen of Scots, which she conceived that her im- proved relations with Spain enabled her to indulge, and Leicester could but entreat Burghley to hurry back to her side : l Burghley could do more with her in one hour than others in seven years/ * On the back of this conversation, a Captain Erring- ton came from Edinburgh with a message from Morton, who, ignorant of the change in Elizabeth's feeling, sup- posed that she still entertained the same wishes which she had expressed through Killigrew, and professed himself ready to meet them on the conditions which she now saw for the first time. She pronounced them at once ' to be absurd and unreasonable/ The request for an English army to superintend the Queen of Scots' execution she supposed must have been made in Leicester to Burghley, November 4 :