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Elizabeth 23 July 1567, in Wright i. 260. [230] Throckmorton to Cecil: 'upon other accidents [since Leith] they have observed such things in H. My's doings, as have tended to the danger of such as she had dealt withall.' Wright 251. [231] Calderwood ii. 384: 'Modo cha ha usato la regina di Scotia per liberarsi,' from the Florentine archives, in Labanoff vii. 135. CHAPTER IV. INTERDEPENDENCE OF THE EUROPEAN DISSENSIONS IN POLITICS AND RELIGION. If we inquire into the reason why Philip II gave up his previous relations with England and sided with the Queen of Scots, we shall find it mainly in the fact that the victory of Protestant ideas in England exercised a counter-action which was insupportable for the government he had established in the Netherlands. But that he gave Mary no help in her troubles, though information was once collected as to how it might be done, may also be traceable to the disturbances that had broken out in the Netherlands, the suppression of which occupied all his attention and resources. In 1568 the Duke of Alva was master of the Netherlands: he was already able to send a considerable force to help the French government, which had once more broken an agreement forced upon it by the Huguenots; the stress of the religious war was transferred to France, and there too the Catholic military force by degrees gained the upper hand. It was under these circumstances that Mary Stuart appeared in England with a demand for help. If in the Netherlands the attempts of the nobles and the Protestant tendencies had been alike defeated, they had on the other hand, by a similar union, achieved a decisive victory in Scotland. Was Elizabeth to join Mary in combating them? Elizabeth disliked the proceedings of the Scotch nobles towards their lawful Queen; the adherents of the Scotch church-system were already troublesome to her in England: but, however much she found to blame in them, in the great contest of the world they were her allies. Mary on the other hand held to that great system of life and thought with which the English Queen and her ministers had broken. Whatever Elizabeth might have previously promised, she did not mean to be bound by it under circumstances so completely altered.[232] Had she chosen to restore Mary, she would have opened the island to all the influences which she desired to exclude. Nor did she wish to let her retire to France, for while Mary had resided there previ
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