Elizabeth refused to take care of herself. She would show no distrust.
She would not dismiss the Catholic ladies and gentlemen from the
household. She would allow no penal laws to be enforced against
Catholics as such. Repeated conspiracies to assassinate her were
detected and exposed, but she would take no warning. She would have no
bodyguard. The utmost that she would do was to allow the Jesuits and
seminary priests, who, by Parsons's own acknowledgment, were sowing
rebellion, to be banished the realm, and if they persisted in remaining
afterwards, to be treated as traitors. When executions are treated as
martyrdoms, candidates will never be wanting for the crown of glory, and
the flame only burnt the hotter. Tyburn and the quartering knife was a
horrid business, and Elizabeth sickened over it. She hated the severity
which she was compelled to exercise. Her name was defiled with the
grossest calumnies. She knew that she might be murdered any day. For
herself she was proudly indifferent; but her death would and must be
followed by a furious civil war. She told the Privy Council one day
after some stormy scene, that she would come back afterwards and amuse
herself with seeing the Queen of Scots making their heads fly.
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