politicks and religion caused by the ac∣cession of Elizabeth, was fatal alike to her honors and her pleasures. General Lord Mortimer followed the widowed King to Spain, and raised on his favor a fortune that gave him power to fix his own fate, when death suddenly decided it. His relict re∣tired to Rouen in Normandy, where his sister was then Abbess, leaving her younger son in the service of Philip, and her elder in the army of Francis IId. Naturally of an

active temper, she could not resolve to give up the world, though attached to it only by disgusts, and lavished a large por∣tion of the immense fortune her mother and husband had united to bequeath her, in cherishing every exiled enemy of Eli∣zabeth. Elated with the vain hope of one day seeing her ill-fated brother throned in conjunction with the Queen of Scots, she entered into all his measures while that union was in agitation; and emerging once more from her convent, journeyed to Rome, where she spared neither pains nor money to win friends who might authorize and ratify it. She was among the few who knew the marriage secretly took place; she even knew it was likely to pro∣duce heirs of royalty and misfortune; when the discovery, trial, and execution, of the Duke of Norfolk, entirely crushed her last fond project. From that moment she had remained uninformed of the se∣cret soul of Mary, and the fate of her un happy offspring. The avowed disgust she had shewn towards Elizabeth, made it dangerous for her to return to her own

country, and hardly in it could she have arrived at such important intelligence, when once the clue was lost. Aspiring, rich, and restless, she still affected to ap∣pear the patroness of all oppressed Eng∣lishmen; and if I found it prudent to avow myself, I might safely rely on a welcome from her who would find with joy every hope so long extinct renovated in me. Our present journey conducted us to a coast almost opposite to that of Normandy. I fancied a pleasure in having it in my power to claim her cares in the approach∣ing melancholy crisis, and was not with∣out hopes Lord Leicester might safely ap∣pear in his own person, when once my sister had escaped to rejoin us.
These various reflections fully occupied my mind 'till the dawn of day, when our guide assured us we might safely, rest in the hamlet to which we were near. Con∣vinced by Miss Cecil's confidence in him he might, fully be trusted, I entered with weary limbs a cottage from whence its la∣borious inhabitants were just issuing to work. They used their utmost