audience of her sister at Whitehall, she threw herself, bathed in tears, at the Queen's feet, and deplored that she was estranged from her. If it was because of her religion, she was willing to learn better and become a Catholic. When the moment came, however, for her to make her formal recantation, her stomachache was so bad as to wring groans and cries of suffering from her, destined, we may be sure, to reach Protestant ears, and to be interpreted as signs of spiritual anguish.
The Spanish agents at the ear of the Queen did not trust Elizabeth, who whilst attending mass took care to impress the reformers with her Protestant sympathies; and Mary, at her wit's end how to deal with her sister, sent for her, and prayed her earnestly to say whether she really believed in the Catholic doctrine of the sacrament or not. She might speak, said the Queen, with perfect freedom, and say whether, as the Protestants avowed, she attended mass from dissimulation or fear. The Princess hesitated not at all. She was ready, she said, to announce solemnly in public that she attended the Catholic service at the bidding of her own conscience and free will alone, uninfluenced by fear or duplicity. How she played fast and loose with consummate skill during her sister's short reign cannot here be told; but to the dying Mary's messengers sent to ask about her religion she answered fervently: "'Is it not possible that the Queen will be persuaded that I am a Catholic, having so often protested it?' and thereupon she did swear and vow that she was a Catholic." This protestation she renewed to Count Feria, Philip's ambassador, who went to salute the rising sun just before Mary died.
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The Duke of Alençon
But on the accession of Elizabeth all was changed. The mask was cast aside, and though on many occasions the Queen, to serve temporary political ends, pretended that there was little or no difference between her faith and that of Philip of Spain, and she alternately persecuted Puritans and Catholics alike, she knew that her strength lay in a negation of the papal authority and foreign religious dictation; and Protestantism was thenceforward her ostensible faith. And yet no words could be too abusive for her to use towards the Protestant Netherlanders when first they rose against the religious oppression of Spain. "If the leaders came to her for help," she said, "she would answer them in a way that would make them understand how she held your Majesty's (i. e., Philip's) interests, and she cursed subjects who did not recognize the mercy of God in sending them a Prince of so much clemency and humanity as your Majesty." If any counsellor of hers, she swore on another occasion, dared to advise her to such a wicked course as to help them (the Dutch Protestants), she would hang him as a traitor; and yet at that very time, and until the Netherlands finally shook off the yoke, it was Elizabeth's money, support, and countenance that alone made their struggle against Spain possible. At one time images and crucifixes adorned her altars, but when a turn of the political wheel made it unnecessary for her to curry favor with the Catholics, the sacred emblems were cast into the lumber-rooms, only to be set on high again when need
