ight
give her the English crown, the second could hardly fail to restore her
to the crown of Scotland. In any case her presence, rousing as it did
fresh hopes of a Catholic reaction, put pressure on her sister Queen.
Elizabeth "had the wolf by the ears," while the fierce contest which
Alva's presence roused in France and in the Netherlands was firing the
temper of the two great parties in England. In the Court, as in the
country, the forces of progress and of resistance stood at last in sharp
and declared opposition to each other. Cecil at the head of the
Protestants demanded a general alliance with the Protestant churches
throughout Europe, a war in the Low Countries against Alva, and the
unconditional surrender of Mary to her Scotch subjects for the
punishment she deserved. The Catholics on the other hand, backed by the
mass of the Conservative party with the Duke of Norfolk at its head, and
supported by the wealthier merchants who dreaded the ruin of the Flemish
trade, were as earnest in demanding the dismissal of Cecil and the
Protestants from the council-board, a steady peace with Spain, and,
though less openly, a recognition of Mary's succession. Elizabeth was
driven to temporize as before. She refused Cecil's counsels; but she
sent money and arms to Conde, and hampered Alva by seizing treasure on
its way to him, and by pushing the quarrel even to a temporary embargo
on shipping either side the sea. She refused the counsels of Norfolk;
but she would hear nothing of a declaration of war, or give any
judgement on the charges against the Scottish Queen, or recognize the
accession of James in her stead.

[Sidenote: Norfolk.]

But to the pressure of Alva and Mary was now added the pressure of Rome.
With the triumph of Philip in the Netherlands and of the Guises in
France Pius the Fifth held that the time had come for a decisive attack
on Elizabeth. If Philip held back from playing the champion of
Catholicism, if even the insults to Alva failed to stir him to active
hostility, Rome could still turn to its adherents within the realm. Pius
had already sent two envoys in 1567 with powers to absolve the English
Catholics who had attended church from their schism, but to withdraw all
hope of future absolution for those who continued to conform. The result
of their mission however had been so small that it was necessary to go
further. The triumph of Alva in the Netherlands, the failure of the
Prince of Orange in an attempt