Читать книгу Bess of Hardwick and Her Circle онлайн

71 страница из 82

Her reply to this document, especially to the clause quoted, was clear, dignified, and highly emphatic. She did not doubt the English Queen’s good faith, nor the friendship of her nobles, nor the goodwill and liking of the Duke. She adroitly declared that she never regarded marriage as a mere means to recover power and position, saying, “I assure you that if either men or money to have reduced my rebels to their due obedience could have ticed me I could have been provided of a husband ere now. But I... did never give ear to any such offer.” She fully calculated what she would lose by this marriage in regard to all her “friends beyond the seas.” The Duke of Alva was trying to secure her co-operation in the invasion of England. She was coquetting with the Duke of Anjou. She was writing to Rome. By the document she had signed she laid aside all future schemes, while she could still nourish the secret hope that, once restored to the Scottish throne in place of her baby son, she would, in default of Elizabeth’s marriage, inherit the throne of England. The whole matter was now on such a broad and amicable footing that apparently nothing was wanting but the longed-for “Bless you, my children” from the lips of Elizabeth.