[372] Murden, 337. Dr. Lingard has fully established, what indeed no one could reasonably have disputed, Elizabeth's passion for Anjou; and says very truly, "the writers who set all this down to policy cannot have consulted the original documents."--P. 149. It was altogether repugnant to sound policy. Persons, the jesuit, indeed says, in his famous libel, _Leicester's Commonwealth_, written not long after this time, that it would have been "honourable, convenient, profitable, and needful:" which every honest Englishman would interpret by the rule of contraries. Sussex wrote indeed to the queen in favour of the marriage (Lodge, ii. 177); and Cecil undoubtedly professed to favour it; but this must have been out of obsequiousness to the queen. It was a habit of this minister to set down briefly the arguments on both sides of a question, sometimes in parallel columns, sometimes successively; a method which would seem too formal in our age, but tending to give himself and others a clearer view of the case. He has done this twice in the present instance (Murden, 322, 331); and it is evident that he does not, and cannot, answer his own objections to the match. When the council waited on her with this resolution in favour of the marriage, she spoke sharply to those whom she believed to be against it. Yet the treaty went on for two years; her coquetry in this strange delay breeding her, as Walsingham wrote from Paris, "greater dishonour than I dare commit to paper." Strype's _Annals_, iii. 2. That she ultimately broke it off, must be ascribed to the suspiciousness and irresolution of her character, which, acting for once conjointly with her good understanding, overcame a disgraceful inclination. [373] Strype, iii. 480. Stubbe always signed himself Scæva, in these left-handed productions. [374] Lodge, ii. 412; iii. 49. [375] Several volumes of the Harleian MSS. illustrate the course of government under Elizabeth. The copious analysis in the catalogue, by Humphrey Wanley and others, which I have in general found accurate, will, for most purposes, be sufficient. See particularly vol. 703. A letter, _inter alia_, in this (folio 1) from Lord Hunsdon and Walsingham to the sheriff of Sussex, directs him not to assist the creditors of John Ashburnham in molesting him, "till such time as our determination touching the premises shall be known," Ashburnham being to attend the council to prefer his complaint. See also vols. 6995, 6996, 6997, and many others. The Lansdowne catalogue will furnish other evidences. [376] Anderson's _Reports_, i. 297. It may be found also in the _Biographia Britannica_, and the _Biographical Dictionary_, art. Anderson. [377] Lansdowne MSS. lviii. 87. The Harleian MS. 6846 is a mere transcript from Anderson's _Reports_, and consequently of no value. There is another in the same collection, at which I have not looked.