st of her council do, as of their
own judgement, excuse the lack thereof to the king; and yet on their own
parts offer the supplement thereof with reverence."

After all, the king of Sweden never came.

CHAPTER XIIIb.

1561 TO 1565.

Difficulties respecting the succession.--Lady C. Grey marries the earl
of Hertford.--Cruel treatment of them by Elizabeth.--Conspiracy of the
Poles.--Law against prophecies.--Sir H. Sidney ambassador to
France.--Some account of him.--Defence of Havre under the earl of
Warwick.--Its surrender.--Proposed interview between Elizabeth and
Mary.--Plague in London.--Studies of the queen.--Proclamation respecting
portraits of her.--Negotiations concerning the marriage of
Mary.--Elizabeth proposes to her lord R. Dudley.--Hales punished for
defending the title of the Suffolk line.--Sir N. Bacon and lord J. Grey
in some disgrace on the same account.--Queen's visit to
Cambridge.--Dudley created earl of Leicester.--Notice of sir James
Melvil and extracts from his memoirs.--Marriage of Mary with
Darnley.--Conduct of Elizabeth respecting it.--She encourages, then
disavows the Scotch malcontent lords.--Behaviour of sir N.
Throgmorton.--The puritans treated with greater lenity.

The situation of Elizabeth, amid its many difficulties, presented none
so perplexing, none which the opinions of her most prudent counsellors
were so much divided on the best mode of obviating, as those arising out
of the doubt and confusion in which the right of succession was still
involved. Her avowed repugnance to marriage, which was now feared to be
insurmountable, kept the minds of men continually busy on this
dangerous topic, and she was already incurring the blame of many by the
backwardness which she discovered in designating a successor and causing
her choice to be confirmed, as it would readily have been, by the
parliament.

But this censure must be regarded as unjust. Even though the jealousy of
power had found no entrance into the bosom of Elizabeth, sound policy
required her long to deliberate before she formed a decision, and
perhaps, whatever that decision might be, forbade her, under present
circumstances, to announce it to the world.

The title of the queen of Scots, otherwise unquestionable, was barred by
the will of Henry VIII., ratified by an unrepealed act of parliament,
and nothing less solemn than a fresh act of the whole legislature would
have been sufficient to render it perfectly free from