Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 7.djvu/473

1566.] THE MURDER OF DARNLEY. 4^3 them, I took occasion to point out to her the true character of this new religion, which will endure no rule and will have everything at its own pleasure without regard to the sovereign authority; it was time for her to see to these things, and I bade her observe the contrast between these turbulent heretics and the quiet and obedience of her Catholic subjects. She said she could not tell what those devils were after. 1 They want liberty, madam, I replied, and if princes do not look to themselves and work in concert to put them down, they will find before long what all this is coming to. 2 1 She could not but agree with me : she attempted a defence of her own subjects, as if there was some justice in their complaints of the uncertainty of the suc- cession; but she knows at heart what it really means, and by and by when she finds them obstinate she will understand it better. I told her before that I knew they would press her, and she would not believe me. ' Melville, the agent of the Queen of Scots, was with me yesterday. That Queen's disagreement with her husband is doing her much mischief here ; yet she has so much credit with the good all over the- realm that the 1 ' Respondiome que no sabia que querian estos demonios.' 2 Elizabeth had before affected to be alarmed at the revolutionary ten- dencies of Protestantism. On the 1 5th of the preceding July, de Silva wrote 4 The Queen must be growing anxious. She often says to me that jects now-a-days to anarchy and re- volution. I invariably reply that this is the beginning, middle, and end of the inventors of new religions. They have an eye only to their own interests ; they care neither for God nor law, as they show by their works; and princes ought to take order among themselves and unite to chas- she wonders at the tendency of sub- j tise their excesses.' MS. Simancas*