He, it is more and more clear to me, was the solitary author of Elizabeth's and England's greatness." "I shall return from Simancas," he writes from Valladolid, "more a Cecil maniac than ever.

In the Duke of Norfolk's conspiracy, the Queen seems to have fairly given up the reins to him.

It is impossible to read the correspondence between Philip, Alva, the Pope, the Duke of Norfolk, and the Queen of Scots, the deliberate arrangements for Elizabeth's murder, without shivering to think how near a chance it was.

Cecil was the one only man they feared, and the skill with which he dug mines below theirs, and pulled the strings of the whole of Europe against them, was truly splendid.
Elizabeth had lost her head with it all, but she knew it and did not interfere.

There are a great many letters of the Queen of Scots at Simancas, some of them of the deepest interest.