170 A DISCOURSE IN PRAISE 



if it had been dissolved till time that the League had 

 been better confirmed in France ; which no doubt 

 would have been, if the duke of Guise, who was the 

 only man of worth on that side, had lived ; and the 

 French king durst never have laid harfd upon him, 

 had he not been animated by the English victory 

 against the Spaniards precedent. And then, if some 

 maritime town had been gotten into the hands of 

 the League, it had been a great surety and strength 

 to the enterprise. The popes, to consider of them 

 whose course and policy it had been, knowing her 

 majesty s natural clemency, to have temporized and 

 dispensed with the Papists coming to church, that 

 through the mask of their hypocrisy they might 

 have been brought into places of government in the 

 state and in the country : these, contrariwise, by the 

 instigation of some fugitive scholars that advised 

 him, not that was best for the see of Rome, but 

 what agreed best with their eager humours and des 

 perate states ; discover and declare themselves so 

 far by sending most seminaries, and taking of recon 

 cilements, as there is now severity of laws introduced 

 for the repressing of that sort, and men of that reli 

 gion are become the suspect. What should I speak 

 of so many conspiracies miraculously detected ? the 

 records shew -the treasons : but it is yet hidden in 

 many of them how they came to light. What should 

 I speak of the opportune death of her enemies, 

 and the wicked instruments towards her estate ? 

 Don Juan died not amiss : Darleigh, duke of Le 

 nox, who was used as an instrument to divorce Scot- 



