I57I-] THE DUKE OF NORFOLK. 17 admitted the true character of Ridolfi's mission, and that her protestations of integrity had been thrown away. There, in plain words, in the handwriting of her own agent, was the intimation that he had made a full confession, and the mask could be worn no longer. Shrewsbury placed the Bishop's letter in her hands. ' The hand/ she said, ' was Esau's hand, but the voice was Jacob's ; the Bishop had held the pen, but some one else had guided it.' Then bursting into rage, she cried, v ' that the Bishop of Ross was a flayed and fear- ful priest, who had done as they would have him do ; ' for herself, ' they should find her to be a Queen, and to have the heart of a Queen, with other words of her wonted miscontented manner ; ' 1 France and Spain, she said, would come and deliver her, and the turn of her enemies should come. Alas ! France was but congratulating itself that the discovery of her danger might frighten Elizabeth into a renewed desire to marry one of its princes; and Alva, on the news of Norfolk's arrest, had driven Ri- dolfi from the Court, and had determined to leave to God the settlement of a matter in which the Pope as- sured him that God was profoundly interested. It was with the utmost unwillingness that either the Pope or Philip could part with a project on which their im- agination had dwelt so passionately. Alva laid the fault 011 Ridolfi. Ridolfi complained at the Yatican, that the fault was Alva's in refusing to allow the letters which 1 Shrewsbury to Cecil, Novem- I January, 9, 1572 : MSS. QUEEN OF ber 23, 1571 ; Sadler to Cecil, | SCOTS. VOL. x. 2
