ment and be satisfactory to the
country. The Queen must therefore strongly deprecate the hasty
introduction of the measure, which would serve only to commit the
government to proposals from which they could not afterwards
recede, while it is _certain_ from what the bishop says, that they
would not be accepted on the other side, and thus an acrimonious
contest would be begun, which, however it ended, would make any
satisfactory settlement of the question impossible.

He replied on the following day:--

_Feb. 13._--First the bishop suggests that the endowments posterior
to the Reformation should be given to the church, and those
preceding it to the Roman catholics. It would be more than idle
and less than honest, were Mr. Gladstone to withhold from your
Majesty his conviction that no negotiation founded on such a basis
as this could be entertained, or, if entertained, could lead to
any satisfactory result. Neither could Mr. Gladstone persuade the
cabinet to adopt it, nor could the cabinet persuade the House of
Commons, nor could cabinet and House of Commons united persuade
the nation to acquiesce, and the very attempt would not only
prolong and embitter controversy, but would weaken authority in
this country. For the thing contemplated is the very thing that
the parliament was elected not to do.

_Osborne, Feb. 14._--The Queen thanks Mr. Gladstone for his long
letter, and is much gratified and relieved by the conciliatory
spirit expressed throughout his explanations on this most
difficult and important question. The Queen thinks it would indeed
be most desirable for him to see the Archbishop of Canterbury--and
she is quite ready to write to the archbishop to inform him of her
wish and of Mr. Gladstone's readiness to accede to it, should he
wish it.

"My impression is," Mr. Gladstone wrote to Lord Granville (Feb. 14), "that
we should make a great mistake if we were to yield on the point of time.
It is not time that is wanted; we have plenty of time to deal with the
Bishop of Peterborough's points so far as they can be dealt with at all.
Sir R. Palmer has been here to-day with overtures from persons of
importance unnamed. I think probably the Archbishop of Canterbury and
others.(175) I do not doubt that on the other side they want time, for
their suggestions are crude."

(M79) On the following day (Feb