Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 10.djvu/515

1579-1 THE ALENCON MARRIAGE. 495 to bring it back under the bondage of the Church again after a bloody civil war. 1 Philip Sidney, in the name of the Pro- testants, told her that it was too late to separate herself now from the party with which her fortunes were bound up. He denounced with a fiery invective the false brood of Catherine de Medici ; 2 and while the Queen herself was holding a ball at the palace, and exhibiting her dancing to her lover, who was gazing at her from behind a curtain with emotions which have been left unrecorded, Sidney's father, Sir Henry, with Pembroke, and the other Puritan leaders, were sitting in Leicester's house to consult how best to defeat the monstrous alliance in Parliament. 3 The rage of the people found expression at last in a pamphlet, written by a Puritan lawyer, brother-in-law of the celebrated Cartwright, named John Stubbs. It was no : time for polished phrases. The genuine loyalty of Pro- testantism refused to garnish itself in euphuistic compli- ments, preferring plain words as the most becoming dress for plainness of thought. The pamphlet told the Queen that she was too old to think of marriage. The hope of children might have reconciled the country to an alliance which it did not otherwise like, but at forty- six she was unlikely to produce a living child. The 1 ' Se puede creer que es permis- sion divina para reducir este reyno a la religion Gatolica, y castigalle del haberse apartado della con una muy intestina guerra.' Don Bernardino al Key, 9 de Noviembre : MSS. Si- mancas. 2 Sidney's spirited letter is printed in the Cabala. 3 Don Bernardino al Rey, 25 de Agosto : MSS. Simancas.