Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 9.djvu/347

1 5 70. ] EXCOMMUNICA T2ON OF E LIZ ABE TH. 333 With the utmost art Elizabeth could have scarcely counterfeited language which, if she meant well and honourably, would have expressed better what ought to have been her feeling. She would not see the Queen of Scots herself. It was not without misgiving that she trusted even Cecil within the reach of her fascina- tions. No one perhaps except Knox had escaped from an encounter with this extraordinary woman altogether uninfluenced. Not a spell of subtlest glamoury would be left untried on Cecil ; and it was impossible to forget that he was going into the presence of a person whom disease or accident might make at any moment his titu- lar, perhaps his reigning Sovereign. Both the Queen and Lady Lennox warned him at his parting not to be ' won over/ and his confident promises scarcely reas- sured them. 1 The Bishop of Ross and Sir Walter Mildmay accom- panied him. ' The Bishop of Ross/ wrote Don Guerau, ' sends me word by one of his servants that he will return in a week and tell me what his mistress will do. I know for certain that the Duke of Anjou is a suitor for her hand, and that she is not disinclined to accept him. But her English friends do not like it, and your Ma- jesty may believe that I do not. The Catholics, your Highness is aware, are also against her marriage with the Duke of Norfolk, not being assured that he is a Christian. The Earl of Arundel and Lord Lumley undertake however that the Duke will submit to the 1 Lady Lennox to Cecil, October 5 MSS. QUEEN OF SCOTS. La Mothe, Depeches, October 16.