They fell one after
another--Murray, Morton, Gowrie--into bloody graves. Others took their
places and struggled on. The Scotch Reformation was saved. Scotland was
not allowed to open its arms to an invading army to strike England
across the Border. But this was held to be their sufficient recompense.
They cared for their cause as well as for the English Queen, and they
had their reward. If they saved her they saved their own country. She
too did not lie on a bed of roses. To prevent open war she was exposing
her own life to the assassin. At any moment a pistol-shot or a stab with
a dagger might add Elizabeth to the list of victims. She knew it, yet
she went on upon her own policy, and faced in her person her own share
of the risk. One thing only she did. If she would not defend her friends
and her subjects as Queen of England, she left them free to defend
themselves. She allowed traitors to be hanged when they were caught at
their work. She allowed the merchants to fit out their privateer fleets,
to defend at their own cost the shores of England, and to teach the
Spaniards to fear their vengeance.
But how long was all this to last? How long were loyal citizens to feel
that they were living over a loaded mine?--throughout their own country,
throughout the Continent, at Rome and at Madrid, at Brussels and at
Paris, a legion of conspirators were driving their shafts under the
English commonwealth.
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