back from France loaded with plate and jewels, and full of praise of the gallantry of Alençon, the Queen became somewhat warmer, and Walsingham for weeks to come was bombarded with minute questions as to the personal qualities, and particularly as to the pock-marked visage, of the suitor. There was but one more of the great conspirators against England to deal with. Norfolk had deservedly died the death of a traitor, and those who had supported him were either dead or lingering sufferers in prison, the disloyal Catholics were despairing, Spain had received its answer by the expulsion of De Spes and the renewal of the war in the Netherlands, whilst Coligny and the Huguenots rode rough-shod over the Guises and their friends. But the very spring-head of the conspiracy remained untouched. A commission was appointed in June to formulate charges against Mary Stuart herself,[351] and in Parliament it was resolved that she was unworthy to succeed to the English crown. But Elizabeth again allowed her personal feeling to stand in the way of her patriotic duty, or, as some would prefer to say, desired to fix upon others the responsibility of a grave act against her own order and kin. Burghley, in his letter already quoted, written at the end of June to Walsingham, says: “Now for Parliament: I cannot write patiently: all that we laboured for, and with full consent brought to fashion, I mean a law to make the Scottish Queen unable and unworthy of succession of the crown, was by her Majesty neither assented to nor rejected, but deferred until the feast of All Saints; but what all other good and wise men think thereof, you may guess. Some here have, as it seemeth, abused their favour about her Majesty, to make herself her most enemy. God amend them.”[352] A fortnight after this letter was written Burghley was made Lord Treasurer of England in place of the Marquis of Winchester, who had recently died. The work and strain of the Secretaryship had gravely affected Burghley’s health, and early in the previous April he had been so ill that his life was despaired of. De Guaras, the merchant who acted informally as Spanish agent, says that the Queen and most of the Councillors visited him, in the belief that his state was desperate.[353] For some time he had been begging for permission to rest, but until the great matters in hand were settled, this was impossible. The sky over England had once more become cleared, and the great minister could hand over to his old friend Sir Thomas Smith the Secretaryship, in which he had done such signal service to the State.