igh's papers for that
time being in the Record Office--but if I can be allowed a few days'
work, I believe I can turn them to good account. With my very best
thanks for your own and Salisbury's goodness in this matter, I
remain, faithfully yours,

"J. A. FROUDE."

A few days later he writes: "I have seen Stewart and looked through
the catalogue. There appear to be about eight volumes which I wish
to examine. The volumes which I marked as containing matter at
present important to me are Vols. 2 and 3 on the war with France and
Scotland from 1559 to 1563, Vols. 138, 152, 153, 154, 155 on the
disputes relating to the succession to the English Crown, and the
respective claims of the Queen of Scots, Lady Catherine Grey, Lord
Darnley, and Laqy Margaret Lennox. I noted the volumes only. I did
not take notice of the pages because as far as I could see the
volumes appeared to be given up to special subjects, and I should
wish therefore to read them through."

His growing admiration for Cecil appears in the following extracts:

"I could only do real justice to such a collection by being allowed
to read through the whole of it volume by volume--and for such a
large permission as that I fear it may be dangerous to ask. Lord
Salisbury, however, whatever my faults may be, could find no one who
has a more genuine admiration for his ancestor."

October 16th, 1864.--"I cannot say beforehand the papers which I wish
to examine, as I cannot tell what the collection may contain. My
object is to have everything which admits of being learnt about the
period--especially what may throw light on Lord Burleigh's
character. He, it is more and more clear to me, was the solitary
author of Elizabeth's and England's greatness."

"I shall return from Simancas," he writes from Valladolid, "more a
Cecil maniac than ever. In the Duke of Norfolk's conspiracy, the
Queen seems to have fairly given up the reins to him. It is
impossible to read the correspondence between Philip, Alva, the
Pope, the Duke of Norfolk, and the Queen of Scots, the deliberate
arrangements for Elizabeth's murder, without shivering to think how
near a chance it was. Cecil was the one only man they feared, and
the skill with which he dug mines below theirs, and pulled the
strings of the whole of Europe against them, was truly splendid.
Elizabeth had lost her head with it all, but she knew it and did not
interfere. There are a great many letters of the Queen of Scots at
Simanca