448 REIGN OF ELIZABETH, [CH. 45. public feeling had left the majority of the members un- affected ; they were still anxious to secure the reversion of the crown to the dying Lady Catherine and her child- ren ; and the tendencies of the country, generally in favour of the Scotch succession, made them more desirous than ever not to let the occasion pass through their hands. The House of Lords was in the interest of Mary Stuart, but some divisions had been already created by her quarrel with Darnley. The Commons perhaps thought that although the peers might prefer the Queen of Scots, they would acquiesce in the wife of Lord Hert- ford sooner than endure any more uncertainty ; the Peers may have hoped the same in favour of their own candidate : they may have felt assured that when the question came once to be discussed, the superior right of the Queen of Scots, the known opinions of the lawyers in her favour, the scarcely concealed preference of the great body of English gentlemen, with the political ad- vantages which would follow on the union of the crowns, must inevitably turn the scale for Mary Stuart, whatever the Commons might will. Both Houses at all events were determined to bear Elizabeth's vacillation no longer, to believe no more in promises which were made only to be broken, and either to decide once for all the future fortunes of England, or lay such a pressure on the Queen that she should be forbidden to trifle any more with her subjects' anxiety for her marriage. On the 17th of October Cecil brought forward in the Lower House a statement of the expenses of the French and Irish wars. On the 1 8th Mr Molyneux, a barrister,
