IS 7 1.] THE RIDOLFI CONSPIRACY. 423 France made unwise pretensions to your crown ; we will secure you against a repetition of that danger. She shall promise to respect your rights while you live. She is a Catholic, and so are more than half your subjects, but we desire no revolution, no bloody Mary to rule over us ; there shall be toleration on all sides, and equal liberty to Protestant and Catholic to worship in their own way.' This would have been the unanimous language of the English Nobles ; a majority of the Commons would have gone along with them, and with what pretext could Elizabeth have resisted ? She could not have resisted at all. She would have had no power and probably no will to resist ; and beyond reasonable doubt Parliament would not have again separated till the long- vexed question had been determined in Mary Stuart's favour. The prospects of a lady who had presided over the horrors at Kirk o' Field were far less promising. The political reasons in favour of her succession were as strong as ever ; but it was no longer possible for an English nobleman to rise in Parliament and speak openly for her title. Her cause was now maintained in secret by conspiracy and rebellion, rebellion under false pretences, and lying pamphlets, and parallels of David. The Catholic religion, shrinking from the light among these subterranean elements, was losing what of English frankness there lay in it, and was walking in the dark with its hand upon the poniard. But this more gloomy turn which affairs were taking was due itself to the
