f Scots making their heads fly.

Philip was weary of it too. He had enough to do in ruling his own
dominions without quarrelling for ever with his sister-in-law. He had
seen that she had subjects, few or many, who, if he struck, would strike
back again. English money and English volunteers were keeping alive the
war in the Netherlands. English privateers had plundered his gold ships,
destroyed his commerce, and burnt his West Indian cities--all this in
the interests of the Pope, who gave him fine words in plenty, but who,
when called on for money to help in the English conquest, only flung
about his dinner-plates. The Duke of Alva, while he was alive, and the
Prince of Parma, who commanded in the Netherlands in Alva's place,
advised peace if peace could be had on reasonable terms. If Elizabeth
would consent to withdraw her help from the Netherlands, and would allow
the English Catholics the tacit toleration with which her reign had
begun, they were of opinion, and Philip was of opinion too, that it
would be better to forgive Drake and St. Domingo, abandon Mary Stuart
and the seminary priests, and meddle no more with English internal
politics.

Tired with a condition which was neither war nor peace, tired with
hanging traitors and the endless problem of her sister of Scotland,
Elizabeth saw no reason for refusing offers which would leave her in
peace for the rest of her own life. Philip, it was said, would restore
the Mass in the churches in Holland. She might stipulate for such
liberty of conscience to the Holland Protestants as she was herself
willing to allow the English Catholics. She saw no reason why she should
insist on a liberty of public worship which she had herself forbidden at
home. She did not see why the Hollanders should be so precise about
hearing Mass. She said she would rather hear a thousand Masses herself
than have on her conscience the crimes committed for the Mass or against
it. She would not have her realm in perpetual torment for Mr. Cecil's
brothers in Christ.

This was Elizabeth's personal feeling. It could not be openly avowed.
The States might then surrender to Philip in despair, and obtain better
securities for their political liberties than she was ready to ask for
them. They might then join the Spaniards and become her mortal enemies.
But she had a high opinion of her own statecraft. Her Catholic friends
assured her that, once at peace with Philip, she would be safe from all
the world. A