Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 10.djvu/432

412 REIGN OF ELIZABETH. [CH. 60. pleasant London house. The Archbishop was sus- pended for contempt. The Attorney- General was in- structed to take measures for his deposition, and the Queen was astonished to find that an ecclesiastical official had rights under the law of England, which even she, arbitrary as she was in such matters, could not set aside. 1 ' Thus, my good lord/ said Walsingham, writing to the Lord Treasurer, ' you see how we proceed still in making war against God, whose ire we should rather seek to appease, that he may keep the wars from us that most apparently approach. God open her Majesty 'a eyes that she may both see her perils and acknowledge from whence the remedy is to be sought/ 2 The making war against God, in Walsingham' s sense of the words, would hare continued longer but for one of those sudden illustrations of the true tendencies of things which burst out from time to time, and startled even Elizabeth into doubts of her own sagacity. The maj ority of the States having signed the treaty with Don John, the Prince of Orange would not give him an excuse for retaining the Spaniards by refusing to consent. He gave his adhesion at last with the rest, religion being left in suspense till an answer should come from Philip. The Spaniards departed as had been pro- mised. Slowly, reluctantly, they evacuated the great citadel which Alva had built at Antwerp Ghent, Maes tr edit, Valenciennes, the lately won Zealand Is- 1 Strype's Grindal, p. 327, &c. Walsingham to Burghley, May 26, 1577 ; "Wilson to Burghley, January 23, 1578 : MSS. Domestic. 8 Walsingham to Burghley, May 26, 1577 : MSS. Ibid.