Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 9.djvu/174

i6o REIGN OF ELIZABETH. [en. 33. Majesty not to suspect or look strangely upon this ex- pression of their feeling towards him. His Majesty might already understand their reason for it ; but in the service of God and the Commonwealth, they would briefly explain themselves. 1 Your Majesty/ they said, ' knows well the many rights and titles which are pretended to the crown of this country, and in what peril we all live by reason of them. The succession is claimed by the Earls of Huntingdon and Hertford and other notorious and ambitious heretics, with how little ground, either of justice or strength, appearing manifestly from the quarrels among themselves. Your Majesty knows also the right which is pretended by the Queen of Scots, and the manj^ persons among us who support her claim. We acknowledge both her rights and her deserts as a most virtuous and Catholic Princess, and we are ready to accept her as our Sovereign, if your Majesty will place her on the throne, with due securities for the Catholic religion and for the maintenance of the ancient alliance between the Houses of Burgundy and England. But we are oi' opinion that if the Queen of Scots be set up by ourselves only in this island, her Majesty may marry some heretic either by compulsion or else for love/ and by this means, our country being infected as it is, she may become her husband's thrall, and we and England be thus ruined for ever. That there is but too much likelihood of this, your Majesty may perceive 1 ' Par amour.'