It was at this period that popular madness was raised to its utmost height by the detection of Babington’s conspiracy. Rich, young, brave, and romantic; stimulated by the hope of gaining the hand of Mary, forgetful that the personal loveliness for which she had once been conspicuous must long have yielded to the joint influence of misery and time; and deceived by the fatal maxim, then too much in vogue, that means are justified by ends--this gentleman resolved on bringing about the liberation of the Scottish by the murder of the English queen. The affair was not looked upon as so atrocious, but that twelve associates were easily found for the execution of the plot; and it is barely possible that, had they proceeded at once to action, their desperate effort might have been crowned with success. They delayed--they talked--they were discovered! Beneath the protracted agonies of the question, one was found of these convicted traitors who asserted the privity of Mary to the whole affair; and at once, as though a torch had been applied to some train long prepared, the whole of England burst forth into a perfect frenzy of terror. A people are never so terrible, never so barbarous, as when they are thoroughly and needlessly terrified. From every quarter of the kingdom the cry was at once for blood; and Elizabeth, looking in cool delight upon the tumult, perceived that the moment had arrived when she might gratify, without fear, her jealous thirst for her hated guest’s destruction. Addresses showered into either house of parliament, beseeching the queen and her ministers to awaken themselves at once to the perils of the people; to provide against the impended dangers of a catholic succession; and to remove at once all possibility of future conspiracies by the immediate removal of her who was, as they asserted, not the cause only, but the principal mover of every successive plot. It is not to be supposed that, after pining so long in secret for an opportunity of gratifying her malice, Elizabeth doubted an instant. It is true indeed that, with a loathsome affectation of tender-heartedness, she pretended to regret the stern necessity; that she whined forth doleful remonstrances to her trusty ministers, entreating them to discover some mode by which she might herself be preserved from the risk of assassination, without undergoing the misery of seeing her well-beloved cousin of Scotland suffer in her stead! Well, however, did those ministers know the meaning of the motives of their odious mistress; well were they aware that there was no more of pity or reluctance in the bosom of Elizabeth than there is of mirth in that of the hyena when he sends forth his yells of laughter above his mangled prey!