378 REIGN OF ELIZABETH. [CH. 60, Randolph, who was not admitted to his mistress's secrets, could not understand what she was about. He saw the Protestants left imperfectly secured. A little more money, and Casimir, and La Noue, and Conde, and Henry of Navarre, would have occupied Paris and have dictated their own conditions. ' Better it would have been/ thought Randolph, f had the Queen dealt substantially with them whom she thought to profit by, and either not have gone so far or not have left the cause for a little.' ' Never was such an opportunity thrown away/ he wrote to Walsingham. ' Do not think it choler or perverse humour in me, but rather duty to my dear mistress, that I see daily so many ways tending to her greatness, and yet either im- politicly overthrown or negligently omitted, even for nought or little when it was put into her hands. I can say no more, but as the mad knave in Terence did Doleo bolum tantum ereptum nobis e faucibus. I know not by what means I may retrahere illud ar- gentum [sic], which if I had in my hands the King should full dear buy his peace.' 1 But what the cause had lost Elizabeth supposed that she had herself gained. When she encouraged revolting subjects with one hand, she played with their sovereign with the other. She conceived that she had placed France in such a position that it could neither coalesce with Spain against her, nor be dangerous by ambitious projects elsewhere. She could now afford to throw off the Hollanders, or to fol- Randolph to "Walsinghara, April 25 and April 27 : MSS. France.
