a Protestant suitor would have
been equally the end of her system of balance and national union, a
signal for the revolt of the party which she disappointed and for the
triumphant dictation of the party which she satisfied. "If a Catholic
prince come here," wrote a Spanish ambassador while pressing her
marriage with an Austrian archduke, "the first Mass he attends will be
the signal for a revolt." It was so with the question of the succession.
To name a Protestant successor from the House of Suffolk would have
driven every Catholic to insurrection. To name Mary was to stir
Protestantism to a rising of despair, and to leave Elizabeth at the
mercy of every fanatical assassin who wished to clear the way for a
Catholic ruler. Yet to leave both unrecognized was to secure the
hostility of both, as well as the discontent of the people at large, who
looked on the settlement of the succession as the primary need of their
national life. From the moment of Mary's landing therefore Elizabeth
found herself thrown again on an attitude of self-defence. Every course
of direct action was closed to her. She could satisfy neither Protestant
nor Catholic, neither Scotland nor England. Her work could only be a
work of patience; the one possible policy was to wait, to meet dangers
as they rose, to watch for possible errors in her rival's course, above
all by diplomacy, by finesse, by equivocation, by delay, to gain time
till the dark sky cleared.

[Sidenote: Mary's succession.]

Nothing better proves Elizabeth's political ability than the patience,
the tenacity, with which for the six years that followed she played this
waiting game. She played it utterly alone. Even Cecil at moments of
peril called for a policy of action. But his counsels never moved the
Queen. Her restless ingenuity vibrated ceaselessly, like the needle of a
compass, from one point to another, now stirring hopes in Catholic, now
in Protestant, now quivering towards Mary's friendship, then as suddenly
trembling off to incur her hate. But tremble and vibrate as it might,
Elizabeth's purpose returned ever to the same unchanging point. It was
in vain that Mary made a show of friendship, and negotiated for a
meeting at York, where the question of the succession might be settled.
It was in vain that to prove her lack of Catholic fanaticism she even
backed Murray in crushing the Earl of Huntly, the foremost of her
Catholic nobles, or that she held out hopes to the English envoy