If balanced by the evil of their plots:
Small if contrasted with the precedents
Of former feuds. In Henry’s time, they say,
Full seventy thousand their viaticum
Had from the hangman.”
But our author does more than make Underhill her apologist. He seems anxious, every now and then, to remind us that he privately thinks much better of his heroine than the history he has read allows him to represent. He sets off the gentler side of her nature in strong contrast to the vindictive, and, indeed, attributes the latter to inherited qualities for which she is not responsible. Accordingly, in the third and fourth scenes of the second Act Mary’s generous forgivingness, and especially to Elizabeth, shines out gloriously.
Count Egmont, Philip’s envoy, has placed upon her finger his master’s betrothal ring, when Renaud, the Spanish ambassador, strikes in with:
“Permit me
To be so bold as to suggest ’twere prudent
His Grace delayed till treason be put down.