Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 10.djvu/466

446 REIGN OF ELIZABETH. [CH. 6l. A brief glance at the state of Scotland becomes again necessary. The Earl of Morton had experienced at Elizabeth's hands the common treatment of the Re- formers everywhere. She had made use of him or tried to make use of him for her own purposes. Whei her negotiations elsewhere broke down, she had flattered and caressed him. When the necessity passed away she had shaken him off, refused to help him, refused him countenance and recognition ; and had left him to hold his own ground with his own resources. The restora- tion of the Queen of Scots would form a necessary part of the general settlement which she was labouring to bring about ; and she had as little desire to see the Scotch Protestants inconveniently strengthened as their brethren who were struggling in the Low Countries. Thus Morton had borne the odium of being a pensioner of England without the benefit of the reality, and it was infinitely to his credit that he resisted the tempt- ations so constantly held out to him by France, and re- mained true to an alliance which he believed to be tht best for his country. Under any circumstances his situation would have been a hard one. The Stewarts, the Campbells, the Gordons, the Hamiltons, unruly under their Kings, saw little to respect in the head of a younger branch of the house of Douglas. His natural supporters were the people and the Reformers ; and the people he was driven to offend by taxation, and the Ee- there.on does so abhor me that I am more fit to die in a private life than live a courtier unless a preventing vol. ii. heart enters her Majesty betimes.' Knowles to "Wilson: WRIGHT,