4 o8 KEIGN OF ELIZABETH. [CH. 60. fered league. There were but two objections. In accept- ing it, Elizabeth would openly sanction the Queen of Scots' deposition already it might have been thought a sufficiently established fact and she must acknow- ledge in form, a community of creed with Calvinists. Both of these she was determined not to do, and no persuasion could move her.
- Your Majesty/ said Walsingham to her, ' shall see
over-dangerous effects, when the trouble of the princes your neighbours shall be at an end, unless your Majesty shall, by prevention, put in execution such remedies as the necessity of your State requires ; wherein if you shall not use expedition the malady will grow incurable, and the sparks of treason that now lie covered will break into unquenchable fire. For the love of God, Madam, let not the cure of your diseased State hang longer in deliberation. Diseased States are no more cured by consultation, when nothing resolved on is put in execution, than unsound and diseased bodies by only conference with physicians without receiving the reme- dies by them prescribed. Whatever account is made of the Regent, there is no man of judgment that loves your Majesty that can imagine any peril that can befall you, so great as the loss of that gentleman, either by death or alienation. Lose not such an one negligently, whom it behoves you to keep so necessarily/ 1 1 Walsingham to Elizabeth, Jan- uary 15, 1575 SMSS. Scotland. Kil- ligrew also said of Morton, he was the only man who could control Scot- land. 'If he were gone they could no more fill his place than England could find a successor to her Ma- jesty.'
