Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 10.djvu/336

CHAPTER LX. THE SPANISH TREATY. IN the fall of Edinburgh Castle and the provisionary arrangement with Spain, the first great Catholic conspiracy against Elizabeth was finally extinguished. The recusants, disheartened at their desertion by Philip, flung their cause upon Providence, and the whole island settled down in a sullen but unresisting acquiescence. While the danger lasted, the Queen had not shown to advantage. Sir Francis Walsingham, not once only, but at every trying crisis of her life, had to describe her conduct as ' dishonourable and dangerous ; ' dis- honourable, because she never hesitated to break a promise when to keep it was inconvenient, and danger- ous from the universal distrust which she had inspired in those who had once relied upon her. But her dis- position to compromise, her extreme objection to se- verity or coercion, were better suited to conciliate de- feated enemies. Whether it was policy, or that, like Hamlet, she ' lacked gall/ she never remembered an injury. She fought with treason by being blind to it,