i 57 8.] THE ALENCON MARRIAGE. 445 peril. God must now uphold the Queen by miracle : ordinary helps are past cure.' 1 Walsingham's mission was a failure as complete as Davison's had been. The Queen found fault with him for not persuading the States into submitting to Don John. On him also fell the indigna- tion of the States at the withholding of the promised bonds, and he was tempted to withdraw in disdain from so ungrateful and unprofitable a service. ' It is given out,' he said in a letter to Randolph, ' that we shall be hanged on our return, so ill have we behaved ourselves here : I hope we shall enjoy our ordinary trial my Lord Cobham to be tried by his Peers, and myself by a jury of Middlesex. I suppose I shall be forced to deal more temperately in these causes than heretofore I have done ; and if I may conveniently, I mean, with the leave of God, to convey myself off from the stage and to become a looker-on/ 2 1 Leicester to Walsingham, July 20 : MSS. Holland. 2 Walsingham to Randolph, July 29: MSS. Holland. Sir Francis Knowles, who understood Elizabeth thoroughly, saw deepest into the explanation of her proceedings. ' I know,' he wrote, 'that we must all give place to her Majesty's will and affections in matters that touch not the dangers of her estate ; but I know also that if her Majesty does not suppress and subject her own will and her own affections to the sound advice of open council in matters touching the preventing her dangers, her Majesty will be utterly over- thrown. Who will persist in giving safe counsel if her Majesty will per- sist in misliking safe counsel ? Her Majesty's safety consists in 4 i. Preventing the conquest of the Low Countries. ' 2. Preventing the revolt of Scotland to the French and the Queen of Scots. ' 3. Preventing the contemptuous growth of the Papists in England.
- King Eichard the Second's men
(the parasites and flatterers) have hold of her Majesty. The Lord bless her from their company. The thinking
