4to REIGN OF ELIZABETH. |CH. 45, never betrayed a friend. The greater simplicity of her conduct however was not wholly a virtue : it had been produced by the absence of all high and generous con- sideration. Ambition for herself and zeal for a_creed which suited her habitsjwere motives of action which involved and required no inconsistencies. From the ( day onTwhich she set foot in Scotland she had kept her eye on Elizabeth's throne, and she had determined to Restore Catholicism ; but her public schemes were but mirrors in which she could see the reflection of her own greatness, and her creed was but the form of conviction which least interfered with her self-indulgence : the passions which were blended with her policy made her incapable of the restraint which was necessary for her success ; .while her French training had taught her les- sons of the pleasantness of pleasure, for which she was / at any time capable of forgetting every other consider- ' ation. Elizabeth forgot the woman in the Queen, and after her first mortification about Leicester preserved little of her sex but its caprices. Mary Stuart when lunder the spell of an absorbing inclination could fling jher crown into the dust and be woman all. Could she have submitted to the advice so consist- ently pressed upon her by Philip, Alva, Melville, Throg- morton, by every wise friend that she possessed, the impatience of the English for a settlement of the suc- cession would have rendered her victory certain. She had only to avoid giving occasion for just complaint or suspicion, and the choice of the country notwithstand- ing her creed or secretly perhaps in consequence of it
