d
land, yea, and that with all speed possible, and let this my scribbling
hand witness it to them all.

"Yours as my own,

"E.R."

See "Archaeologia," vol. xiii. p. 201.]

A project which had been for some time under discussion, of a personal
interview at York between the English and Scottish queens, was now
finally given up. Elizabeth, it is surmised, was unwilling to afford her
beautiful and captivating enemy such an opportunity of winning upon the
affections of the English people, and Mary was fearful of offending her
uncles the princes of Guise by so public an advance towards a good
understanding with a princess now engaged in open hostilities against
their country and faction. The failure of this design deserves not to be
regretted. The meetings of princes have never, under any circumstances,
been known to produce a valuable political result; and an interview
between these jealous and exasperated rivals could only have exhibited
disgusting scenes of forced civility and exaggerated profession, thinly
veiling the inveterate animosity which neither party could hope
effectually to hide from the intuitive perception of the other.

A terrible plague, introduced by the return of the sickly garrison of
Havre, raged in London during the year 1563, and for some time carried
off about a thousand persons weekly. The sittings of parliament were
held on this account at Hertford Castle; and the queen, retiring to
Windsor, kept herself in unusual privacy, and took advantage of the
opportunity to pursue her literary occupations with more than common
assiduity. Without entirely deserting her favorite Greek classics, she
at this time applied herself principally to the study of the Christian
fathers, with the laudable purpose, doubtless, of making herself
mistress of those questions respecting the doctrine and discipline of
the primitive church now so fiercely agitated between the divines of
different communions, and on which, as head of the English church, she
was often called upon to decide in the last resort.

Cecil had mentioned these pursuits of her majesty in a letter to Cox
bishop of Ely, and certainly as matter of high commendation; but the
bishop answered, perhaps with better judgement, that after all,
Scripture was "that which pierced;" that of the fathers, one was
inclined to Pelagianism, another to Monachism, and he hoped that her
majesty only occupied herself with them at idle hours.

Even studies so solemn could