Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 7.djvu/455

1566.] THE MURDER OF DARNLE Y. 435 student discoursed on the perils to which a nation was exposed when the sovereign died with no successor de- clared. The comparative advantages were argued of elective and hereditary monarchy. Each side had its hot defenders ; and though the votes of the University were in favour of the natural laws of succession, the champion of election had the best of the argument, and apparently best pleased the Queen. When in the pero- ration of his speech he said he would maintain his opinion 'with his life, and, if need were, with his death,' 1 she exclaimed, ' Excellent oh, excellent ! ' At the close of the exercises she made a speech in Latin as at Cambridge. She spoke very simply, depre- cating the praises which had been heaped upon her. She had been educated well, she said, though the seed had fallen on a barren soil ; but she loved study if she had not profited by it, and for the Universities she would do her best that they should flourish while she lived, and after her death continue long to prosper. So five bright days passed swiftly, and on the sixth she rode away over Magdalen Bridge to Windsor. As she crested Headington Hill she reined in her horse and once more looked back. There at her feet lay the city in its beauty, the towers and spires springing from amidst the clustering masses of the college elms ; there wound beneath their shade the silvery lines of the Cher- well and the Isis. ' Farewell, Oxford ! ' she cried ; ' farewell, my good ' Hoc vita et si opus est et morte comprobabo.'