e by the course of nature, and with her life
the tyranny would end. If force was attempted, she would not fall
without a struggle; the clergy would stand by her, and all whom the
clergy could influence. Philip would have the pretext, for which he
was longing, for sending Spanish troops; and though liberty might and
would prevail in the end, thousands of lives might be sacrificed, and
Elizabeth's succession would be stained. The appeal to strength was,
and is, the last to which good men will allow themselves to be driven.
The lords understood one another: they would not be the first to
commence; but if an attempt were made to carry off Elizabeth, or to
throw on land a single Spanish battalion, they would know how to act.

Meantime, Dudley, Ashton, Horsey, the brothers Tremayne, and "divers
others," were safe in France, and were hospitably entertained there.
In England they were proclaimed traitors. At Paris they were received
openly at court. The queen wrote to Wotton with her own hand,
commanding him to demand their surrender.[578] She sent for Noailles,
and required that "those wretches, those heretics, those traitorous
execrable villains," who had conspired against her throne should be
placed in her hands.[579] Henry, with unembarrassed coolness, promised
Wotton that they should be apprehended, while he furnished them with
ships, which they openly fitted for sea at the mouth of the Seine; and
one of their number, Henry Killegrew, went to Italy to look for
Courtenay, who was in honourable exile there, to entreat him to put
himself at their head. Courtenay promised to come, so Killegrew
reported on his return;[580] his name would have given them strength,
his presence weakness; but if he really thought again of mixing
himself in conspiracies his intentions were frustrated. The last
direct heir of the noblest family in England died at the end of the
summer, of an ague caught among the lagoons at Venice.[581]

[Footnote 578: The Queen to Wotton: _MS. France_,
bundle 13.]

[Footnote 579: Gens abominables, heretiques et
traistres villains et execrables.--Noailles to the
King, May 7: _Ambassades_, vol. v.]

[Footnote 580: Wotton to Petre, cypher: _French
MSS._ State Paper Office, bundle 13.]

[Footnote 581: His death was of course attributed
by the wor