Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 7.djvu/378

358 REIGN OF ELIZABETH. [en. 44- of England's debt, neither by obtaining of any favour at your hand by her intervention, nor yet for any support in time of their banishment. Allow them their charges out of their own lands, and the greater part even of the English bishops will declare for you.' l Never had Elizabeth been in greater danger ; and the worst features of the peril were the creations of her own untruths. Without a fuller knowledge of the strength and temper of the English Catholics than the surviving evidence reveals, her conduct cannot be judged with entire fairness. Undoubtedly the utmost caution was necessary to avoid giving the Spaniards a pretext for interference ; and it is due to her to admit that her own unwillingness to act openly on the side of the northern lords had been endorsed by that of Cecil. Yet she_had been driven intpjyDpsitionjfrom which^ had Mary Stuart understood how to use her advantage, she would scarcely have eert^ abletoextricate_hersejf. If the Queen of __ Scots had relied on her own judgment she woul3~pro- bably have accepted the advice of Melville and Throg- morton and her other English friends ; she would have declared an amnesty, and would have rallied all parties except the extreme Calvinistic fanatics to her side. But such a policy would have involved an indefinite prolong- ation of the yoke which she had already found intoler- able ; she must have concealed or suspended her intention of making a religious revolution, and she must have continued to act with a forbearance towards the Pro- 1 Letter from Sir N. Throgmorton to the Queen of Scots : Printed by Sir James Melville ; abridged.