a great event. The "great cause" demanded, a great, straightforward
blow. It was obvious, however, that it would be difficult, in the midst
of the tragedy and the comedy, for the Netherland business to come fairly
before her Majesty. "Touching the Low Country causes," said Leicester;
"very little is done yet, by reason of the continued business we have had
about the Queen of Scots' matters. All the speech I have had with her
Majesty hitherto touching those causes hath been but private."--
[Leicester to Wilkes, 4 Des 1586. (S. P. Office MS.)]--Walsingham,
longing for retirement, not only on account of his infinite grief for the
death of Sir Philip Sidney, "which hath been the cause;" he said, "that I
have ever since betaken myself into solitariness, and withdrawn; from
public affairs," but also by reason of the perverseness an difficulty
manifested in the gravest affairs by the sovereign he so faithfully
served, sent information, that, notwithstanding the arrival of some of
the States' deputies, Leicester was persuading her Majesty to proceed
first in the great cause. "Certain principal persons, chosen as
committees," he said, "of both Houses are sent as humble suitors, to her
Majesty to desire that she would be pleased to give order for the
execution of the Scottish Queen. Her Majesty made answer that she was
loath to proceed in so violent a course against the said Queen; as the
taking away of her life, and therefore prayed them to think of some other
way which might be for her own and their safety. They replied, no other
way but her execution. Her Majesty, though she yielded no answer to this
their latter reply, is contented to give order that the proclamation be
published, and so also it is hoped that she, will be moved by this, their
earnest instance to proceed to the thorough ending of the cause."

And so the cause went slowly on to its thorough ending. And when
"no other way" could be thought of but to take Mary's life, and when
"no other way of taking that life could be devised," at Elizabeth's