THE DUKE 0* NORFOLK. The bars of hell's gates were broken, and the devils were loose. It is not pretended that she ought to have sacrificed herself. She might have declined, had she pleased it, both the marriage with Alencon. and all in- terference for good or evil with the affairs of riie Con- tinent. But ' to practise ' as she had done deliberately for so many years with the subjects of other princes ; to encourage insurrection for her own purposes, and then to leave the fire to burn ; to hold out hopes and disappoint them ; ' to build/ as Walsingham expressed it, ' with one hand ahd overthrow with the other ; ' all this might be sport to her, but it was- death to those with whom she toyed so cruelly. A few more sentences will bring down the fortunes of the other actors in the story to the eve of St Bar- tholomew. The Queen of Scots, being satisfied that Elizabeth would not be persuaded into extremities against her, remained at Sheffield, contemptuous and defiant. The execution of Norfolk appeared to affect her, and she had an attack of illness which Shrewsbury half doubtingly attributed to grief; l but two days later the Earl relieved the Court of their anxieties about her : she had merely overdosed herself with some convenient medicine. 2 A Commission went down to examine her on her transactions with Eidolfi, Elizabeth at the same time informing her of the measures which had been proposed 1 ' If she be so sick as in appear- ance she seemeth and her people make report of.' Shrewsbury to Burghley, June 10 : MSS. QUEEN OF SCOTS. 2 Same to the same, June 12.
