Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 9.djvu/276

262 J?IGN OF ELIZABETH, LCH. 54. Elizabeth was touched to the quick. She could have borne tjie remonstrances of the Scots. It might be necessary to restore Mary Stuart it seemed that she was slowly making up her mind to it, 1 but the Lords at Linlithgow were not to suppose that they might maintain her revolted subjects in arms, assist them in open invasion, and parade their insolence before the world. The four thousand men were by this time collected at Berwick. Sussex had gone up to assume the com- mand, and had written to Morton to learn what part he intended to take. It would have been death to Morton, in the existing excitement, had he seemed to sanction an English inroad, unless it was 'undertaken avowedly to maintain the King. The irritation was so violent at Edinburgh that Randolph had been obliged to leave the town and join Sussex, and Morton could only say that till Elizabeth was pleased to declare her purposes with less obscurity he could do nothing. 2 She had been on the point of revoking Sussex's commis- sion, but in her anger at the convention it had been allowed to stand, and Sussex, sending to Morton to say that in what he was about to do he intended merely to chastise such of the Borderers as had made incursions into England, prepared to execute the Queen's original commands. ' Before the light of the coming moon was 1 La Mothe writes, 'qu'elle est bien disposes envers sa personne et sa vie, comme je crois qu'elle ny a heu jamais mauvaise intention, et que mesrae elle goutte aulcunement sa restitution et ne la rejecte tant qu'elle souloit.' Depeches, April 18. 2 Sussex to Elizabeth, April 10: MSS. Border.