Title: History of the United Netherlands, 1587d
Author: Motley, John Lothrop
Language: English
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HISTORY OF THE UNITED NETHERLANDS
From the Death of William the Silent to the Twelve Year's Truce--1609

By John Lothrop Motley



History of the United Netherlands, 1587



CHAPTER XVII.

     Secret Treaty between Queen and Parma--Excitement and Alarm in the
     States--Religious Persecution in England--Queen's Sincerity toward
     Spain--Language and Letters of Parma--Negotiations of De Loo--
     English Commissioners appointed--Parma's affectionate Letter to the
     Queen--Philip at his Writing-Table--His Plots with Parma against
     England--Parma's secret Letters to the King--Philip's Letters to
     Parma Wonderful Duplicity of Philip--His sanguine Views as to
     England--He is reluctant to hear of the Obstacles--and imagines
     Parma in England--But Alexander's Difficulties are great--He
     denounces Philip's wild Schemes--Walsingham aware of the Spanish
     Plot--which the States well understand--Leicester's great
     Unpopularity--The Queen warned against Treating--Leicester's Schemes
     against Barneveld--Leicestrian Conspiracy at Leyden--The Plot to
     seize the City discovered--Three Ringleaders sentenced to Death--
     Civil War in France--Victory gained by Navarre, and one by Guise--
     Queen recalls Leicester--Who retires on ill Terms with the States--
     Queen warned as to Spanish Designs--Result's of Leicester's
     Administration.

The course of Elizabeth towards the Provinces, in the matter of the
peace, was certainly not ingenuous, but it was not absolutely deceitful.
She concealed and denied the negotiations, when the Netherland statesmen
were perfectly aware of their existence, if not of their tenour; but she
was not prepared, as they suspected, to sacrifice their liberties and
their religion, as the price of her own reconciliation with Spain.
Her attitude towards the States was imperious, over-bearing, and abusive.
She had allowed the Earl of Leicester to return, she said, because of her
love for the poor and oppressed people, but in many of her official and
in all her private communications, she denounced the men who governed
that people as ungrateful wretches and impudent liars!

These were the corrosives and vinegar which she thought suitable for the
case; and the Earl was never weary in depicting the same statesmen as
seditious, pestilent, self-seeking, mischief-making traitors.  These
secret, informal negotiations, had been carried on during most of the
year 1587.  It was the "comptroller's peace;", as Walsingham
contemptuously designated the attempted treaty; for it will be
recollected that Sir James Croft, a personage of very mediocre abilities,
had always been more busy than any other English politician in these
transactions.  He acted; however, on the inspiration of Burghley, who
drew his own from the fountainhead.

But it was in vain for the Queen to affect concealment.  The States knew
everything which was passing, before Leicester knew.  His own secret
instructions reached the Netherlands before he did.  His secretary,
Junius, was thrown into prison, and his master's letter taken from him,
before there had been any time to act upon its treacherous suggestions.
When the Earl wrote letters with, his own hand to his sovereign, of so
secret a nature that he did not even retain a single copy for himself,
for fear of discovery, he found, to his infinite disgust, that the States
were at once provided with an authentic transcript of every line that he
had written.  It was therefore useless, almost puerile, to deny facts
which were quite as much within the knowledge of the Netherlanders as of
himself.  The worst consequence of the concealment was, that a deeper
treachery was thought possible than actually existed.  "The fellow they
call Barneveld," as Leicester was in the habit of designating one of the
first statesmen in Europe, was perhaps justified, knowing what he did, in
suspecting more.  Being furnished with a list of commissioners, already
secretly agreed upon between the English and Spanish governments, to
treat for peace, while at the same time the Earl was beating his breast,
and flatly denying that there was any intention of treating with Parma at
all, it was not unnatural that he should imagine a still wider and deeper
scheme than really existed, against the best interests of his country.
He may have expressed, in private conversation, some suspicions of this
nature, but there is direct evidence that he never stated in public
anything which was not afterwards proved to be matter of fact, or of
legitimate inference from the secret document which had come into his
hands.  The Queen exhausted herself in opprobious language against those
who dared to impute to her a design to obtain possession of the cities
and strong places of the Netherlands, in order to secure a position in
which to compel the Provinces into obedience to her policy.  She urged,
with much logic, that as she had refused the sovereignty of the whole
country when offered to her, she was not likely to form surreptitious
schemes to make herself mistress of a portion of it.  On the other hand,
it was very obvious, that to accept the sovereignty of Philip's
rebellious Provinces, was to declare war upon Philip; whereas, had she
been pacifically inclined towards that sovereign, and treacherously
disposed towards the Netherlands, it would be a decided advantage to her
to have those strong places in her power.  But the suspicions as to her
good faith were exaggerated.  As to the intentions of Leicester, the
States were justified in their almost unlimited distrust.  It is very
certain that both in 1586, and again, at this very moment, when Elizabeth
was most vehement in denouncing such aspersions on her government, he had
unequivocally declared to her his intention of getting possession, if
possible, of several cities, and of the whole Island of Walcheren, which,
together with the cautionary towns already in his power, would enable the
Queen to make good terms for herself with Spain, "if the worst came to
the, worst."  It will also soon be shown that he did his best to carry
these schemes into execution.  There is no evidence, however, and no
probability, that he had received the royal commands to perpetrate such a
crime.

The States believed also, that in those secret negotiations with Parma
the Queen was disposed to sacrifice the religious interests of the
Netherlands.  In this they were mistaken.  But they had reason for their
mistake, because the negotiator De Loo, had expressly said, that, in her
overtures to Farnese, she had abandoned that point altogether.  If this
had been so, it would have simply been a consent on the part of
Elizabeth, that the Catholic religion and the inquisition should be
re-established in the Provinces, to the exclusion of every other form of
worship or polity.  In truth, however, the position taken by her Majesty
on the subject was as fair as could be reasonably expected.  Certainly
she was no advocate for religious liberty.  She chose that her own
subjects should be Protestants, because she had chosen to be a Protestant
herself, and because it was an incident of her supremacy, to dictate
uniformity of creed to all beneath her sceptre.  No more than her father,
who sent to the stake or gallows heretics to transubstantiation as well
as believers in the Pope, had Elizabeth the faintest idea of religious
freedom.  Heretics to the English Church were persecuted, fined,
imprisoned, mutilated, and murdered, by sword, rope, and fire.  In some
respects, the practice towards those who dissented from Elizabeth was
more immoral and illogical, even if less cruel, than that to which those
were subjected who rebelled against Sixtus.  The Act of Uniformity
required Papists to assist at the Protestant worship, but wealthy Papists
could obtain immunity by an enormous fine.  The Roman excuse to destroy
bodies in order to save souls, could scarcely be alleged by a Church
which might be bribed into connivance at heresy, and which derived a
revenue from the very nonconformity for which humbler victims were sent
to the gallows.  It would, however, be unjust in the extreme to overlook
the enormous difference in the amount of persecution, exercised
respectively by the Protestant and the Roman Church.  It is probable that
not many more than two hundred Catholics were executed as such, in
Elizabeth's reign, and this was ten score too many.  But what was this
against eight hundred heretics burned, hanged, and drowned, in one Easter
week by Alva, against the eighteen thousand two hundred went to stake and
scaffold, as he boasted during his administration, against the vast
numbers of Protestants, whether they be counted by tens or by hundreds of
thousands, who perished by the edicts of Charles V., in the Netherlands,
or in the single Saint Bartholomew Massacre in France?  Moreover, it
should never be forgotten--from undue anxiety for impartiality--that most
of the Catholics who were executed in England, suffered as conspirators
rather than as heretics.  No foreign potentate, claiming to be vicegerent
of Christ, had denounced Philip as a bastard and, usurper, or had, by
means of a blasphemous fiction, which then was a terrible reality,
severed the bonds of allegiance by which his subjects were held, cut him
off from all communion with his fellow-creatures, and promised temporal
rewards and a crown of glory in heaven to those who should succeed in
depriving him of throne and life.  Yet this was the position of
Elizabeth.  It was war to the knife between her and Rome, declared by
Rome itself; nor was there any doubt whatever that the Seminary Priests
--seedlings transplanted from foreign nurseries, which were as watered
gardens for the growth of treason--were a perpetually organized band of
conspirators and assassins, with whom it was hardly an act of excessive
barbarity to deal in somewhat summary fashion.  Doubtless it would have
been a more lofty policy, and a far more intelligent one, to extend
towards the Catholics of England, who as a body were loyal to their
country, an ample toleration.  But it could scarcely be expected that
Elizabeth Tudor, as imperious and absolute by temperament as her father
had ever been, would be capable of embodying that great principle.

When, in the preliminaries to the negotiations of 1587, therefore, it was
urged on the part of Spain, that the Queen was demanding a concession of
religious liberty from Philip to the Netherlanders which she refused to
English heretics, and that he only claimed the same right of dictating a
creed to his subjects which she exercised in regard to her own, Lord
Burghley replied that the statement was correct.  The Queen permitted--
it was true--no man to profess any religion but the one which she
professed.  At the same time it was declared to be unjust, that those
persons in the Netherlands who had been for years in the habit of
practising Protestant rites, should be suddenly compelled, without
instruction, to abandon that form of worship.  It was well known that
many would rather die than submit to such oppression, and it was affirmed
that the exercise of this cruelty would be resisted by her to the
uttermost.  There was no hint of the propriety--on any logical basis--
of leaving the question of creed as a matter between man and his Maker,
with which any dictation on the part of crown or state was an act of
odious tyranny.  There was not even a suggestion that the Protestant
doctrines were true, and the Catholic doctrines false.  The matter was
merely taken up on the 'uti possidetis' principle, that they who had
acquired the fact of Protestant worship had a right to retain it, and
could not justly be deprived of it, except by instruction and persuasion.
It was also affirmed that it was not the English practice to inquire into
men's consciences.  It would have been difficult, however, to make that
very clear to Philip's comprehension, because, if men, women, and
children, were scourged with rods, imprisoned and hanged, if they refused
to conform publicly to a ceremony at which their consciences revolted-
unless they had money enough to purchase non-conformity--it seemed to be
the practice to inquire very effectively into their consciences.

But if there was a certain degree of disingenuousness on the part of
Elizabeth towards the States, her attitude towards Parma was one of
perfect sincerity.  A perusal of the secret correspondence leaves no
doubt whatever on that point.  She was seriously and fervently desirous
of peace with Spain.  On the part of Farnese and his master, there was
the most unscrupulous mendacity, while the confiding simplicity and
truthfulness of the Queen in these negotiations was almost pathetic.
Especially she declared her trust in the loyal and upright character of
Parma, in which she was sure of never being disappointed.  It is only
doing justice to Alexander to say that he was as much deceived by her
frankness as she by his falsehood.  It never entered his head that a
royal personage and the trusted counsellors of a great kingdom could be
telling the truth in a secret international transaction, and he justified
the industry with which his master and himself piled fiction upon
fiction, by their utter disbelief in every word which came to them from
England.

The private negotiations had been commenced, or rather had been renewed,
very early in February of this year.  During the whole critical period
which preceded and followed the execution of Mary, in the course of which
the language of Elizabeth towards the States had been so shrewish, there
had been the gentlest diplomatic cooing between Farnese and herself.  It
was--Dear Cousin, you know how truly I confide in your sincerity, how
anxious I am that this most desirable peace should be arranged; and it
was--Sacred Majesty, you know how much joy I feel in your desire for the
repose of the world, and for a solid peace between your Highness and the
King my master; how much I delight in concord--how incapable I am by
ambiguous words of spinning out these transactions, or of deceiving your
Majesty, and what a hatred I feel for steel, fire, and blood.'

Four or five months rolled on, during which Leicester had been wasting
time in England, Farnese wasting none before Sluys, and the States doing
their best to counteract the schemes both of their enemy and of their
ally.  De Loo made a visit, in July, to the camp of the Duke of Parma,
and received the warmest assurances of his pacific dispositions.  "I am
much pained," said Alexander, "with this procrastination.  I am so full
of sincerity myself, that it seems to me a very strange matter, this
hostile descent by Drake upon the coasts of Spain.  The result of such
courses will be, that the King will end by being exasperated, and I shall
be touched in my honour--so great is the hopes I have held out of being
able to secure a peace.  I have ever been and I still am most anxious for
concord, from the affection I bear to her sacred Majesty.  I have been
obliged, much against my will, to take the field again.  I could wish now
that our negotiations might terminate before the arrival of my fresh
troops, namely, 9000 Spaniards and 9000 Italians, which, with Walloons,
Germans, and Lorrainers, will give me an effective total of 30,000
soldiers.  Of this I give you my word as a gentleman.  Go, then, Andrew
de Loo," continued the Duke, "write to her sacred Majesty, that I desire
to make peace; and to serve her faithfully; and that I shall not change
my mind, even in case of any great success, for I like to proceed rather
by the ways of love than of rigour and effusion of bleed."

"I can assure you, oh, most serene Duke," replied Andrew, "that the most
serene Queen is in the very same dispositions with yourself."

"Excellent well then," said the Duke, "we shall come to an agreement
at once, and the sooner the deputies on both sides are appointed the
better."

A feeble proposition was then made, on the part of the peace-loving
Andrew, that the hostile operations against Sluy's should be at once
terminated.  But this did not seem so clear to the most serene Duke.  He
had gone to great expense in that business; and he had not built bridges,
erected forts, and dug mines, only to abandon them for a few fine words,
Fine words were plenty, but they raised no sieges.  Meantime these
pacific and gentle murmurings from Farnese's camp had lulled the Queen
into forgetfulness of Roger Williams and Arnold Groenevelt and their men,
fighting day and night in trench and mine during that critical midsummer.
The wily tongue of the Duke had been more effective than his batteries in
obtaining the much-coveted city.  The Queen obstinately held back her men
and money, confident of effecting a treaty, whether Sluys fell or not.
Was it strange that the States should be distrustful of her intentions,
and, in their turn, become neglectful of their duty?

And thus summer wore into autumn, Sluys fell, the States and their
governor-general were at daggers-drawn, the Netherlanders were full of
distrust with regard to England, Alexander hinted doubts as to the
Queen's sincerity; the secret negotiations, though fertile in suspicions,
jealousies, delays, and such foul weeds, had produced no wholesome fruit,
and the excellent De Loo became very much depressed.  At last a letter
from Burghley relieved his drooping spirits.  From the most disturbed and
melancholy man in the world, he protested, he had now become merry and
quiet.  He straightway went off to the Duke of Parma, with the letter in
his pocket, and translated it to him by candlelight, as he was careful to
state, as an important point in his narrative.  And Farnese was fuller of
fine phrases than ever.

"There is no cause whatever," said he, in a most loving manner, "to doubt
my sincerity.  Yet the Lord-Treasurer intimates that the most serene
Queen is disposed so to do.  But if I had not the very best intentions,
and desires for peace, I should never have made the first overtures.  If
I did not wish a pacific solution, what in the world forced me to do what
I have done?  On the contrary, it is I that have reason to suspect the
other parties with their long delays, by which they have made me lose the
best part of the summer."

He then commented on the strong expressions in the English letters, as to
the continuance of her Majesty in her pious resolutions; observed that he
was thoroughly advised of the disputes between the Earl of Leicester and
the States; and added that it was very important for the time indicated
by the Queen.

"Whatever is to be done," said he, in conclusion, "let it be done
quickly;" and with that he said he would go and eat a bit of supper.

"And may I communicate Lord Burghley's letter to any one else?" asked De
Loo.

"Yes, yes, to the Seigneur de Champagny, and to my secretary Cosimo,"
answered his Highness.

So the merchant negotiator proceeded at once to the mansion of Champagny,
in company with the secretary Cosimo.  There was a long conference, in
which De Loo was informed of many things which he thoroughly believed,
and faithfully transmitted to the court of Elizabeth.  Alexander had done
his best, they said, to delay the arrival of his fresh troops.  He had
withdrawn from the field, on various pretexts, hoping, day after day,
that the English commissioners would arrive, and that a firm and
perpetual peace would succeed to the miseries of war.  But as time wore
away, and there came no commissioners, the Duke had come to the painful
conclusion that he had been trifled with.  His forces would now be sent
into Holland to find something to eat; and this would ensure the total
destruction of all that territory.  He had also written to command all
the officers of the coming troops to hasten their march, in order that
he might avoid incurring still deeper censure.  He was much ashamed,
in truth, to have been wheedled into passing the whole fine season in
idleness.  He had been sacrificing himself for her sacred Majesty, and
to, serve her best interests; and now he found himself the object of her
mirth.  Those who ought to be well informed had assured him that the
Queen was only waiting to see how the King of Navarre was getting on with
the auxiliary force just, going to him from Germany, that she had no
intention whatever to make peace, and that, before long, he might expect
all these German mercenaries upon his shoulders in the Netherlands.
Nevertheless he was prepared to receive them with 40,000 good infantry,
a splendid cavalry force, and plenty of money.'

All this and more did the credulous Andrew greedily devour; and he lost
no time in communicating the important intelligence to her Majesty and
the Lord-Treasurer.  He implored her, he said, upon his bare knees,
prostrate on the ground, and from the most profound and veritable centre
of his heart and with all his soul and all his strength, to believe in
the truth of the matters thus confided to him.  He would pledge his
immortal soul, which was of more value to him--as he correctly observed
--than even the crown of Spain, that the King, the Duke, and his
counsellors, were most sincerely desirous of peace, and actuated by the
most loving and benevolent motives.  Alexander Farnese was "the antidote
to the Duke of Alva," kindly sent by heaven, 'ut contraria contrariis
curenter,' and if the entire security of the sacred Queen were not now
obtained, together with a perfect reintegration of love between her
Majesty and the King of Spain, and with the assured tranquillity and
perpetual prosperity of the Netherlands, it would be the fault of
England; not of Spain.

And no doubt the merchant believed all that was told him, and--what was
worse--that he fully impressed his own convictions upon her Majesty and
Lord Burghley, to say nothing of the comptroller, who, poor man, had
great facility in believing anything that came from the court of the
most Catholic King: yet it is painful to reflect, that in all these
communications of Alexander and his agents, there was not one single
word of truth.--It was all false from beginning to end, as to the
countermanding of the troops,--as to the pacific intentions of the King
and Duke, and as to the proposed campaign in Friesland, in case of
rupture; and all the rest.  But this will be conclusively proved a little
later.

Meantime the conference had been most amicable and satisfactory.  And
when business was over, Champagny--not a whit the worse for the severe
jilting which he had so recently sustained from the widow De Bours, now
Mrs. Aristotle Patton--invited De Loo and Secretary Cosimo to supper.
And the three made a night of it, sitting up late, and draining such huge
bumpers to the health of the Queen of England, that--as the excellent
Andrew subsequently informed Lord Burghley--his head ached most bravely
next morning.

And so, amid the din of hostile preparation not only in Cadiz and Lisbon,
but in Ghent and Sluys and Antwerp, the import of which it seemed
difficult to mistake, the comedy of, negotiation was still rehearsing,
and the principal actors were already familiar with their respective
parts.  There were the Earl of Derby, knight of the garter, and my Lord
Cobham; and puzzling James Croft, and other Englishmen, actually
believing that the farce was a solemn reality.  There was Alexander of
Parma thoroughly aware of the contrary.  There was Andrew de Loo, more
talkative, more credulous, more busy than ever, and more fully impressed
with the importance of his mission, and there was the white-bearded
Lord-Treasurer turning complicated paragraphs; shaking his head and
waving his wand across the water, as if, by such expedients, the storm
about to burst over England could, be dispersed.

The commissioners should come, if only the Duke of Parma would declare
on his word of honour, that these hostile preparations with which all
Christendom was ringing; were not intended against England; or if that
really were the case--if he would request his master to abandon all such
schemes, and if Philip in consequence would promise on the honour of a
prince, to make no hostile attempts against that country.

There would really seem an almost Arcadian simplicity in such demands,
coming from so practised a statesman as the Lord-Treasurer, and from a
woman of such brilliant intellect as Elizabeth unquestionably possessed.
But we read the history of 1587, not only by the light of subsequent
events, but by the almost microscopic revelations of sentiments and
motives, which a full perusal of the secret documents in those ancient
cabinets afford.  At that moment it was not ignorance nor dulness which
was leading England towards the pitfall so artfully dug by Spain.  There
was trust in the plighted word of a chivalrous soldier like Alexander
Farnese, of a most religious and anointed monarch like Philip II.
English frankness, playing cards upon the table, was no match for Italian
and Spanish legerdemain, a system according to which, to defraud the
antagonist by every kind of falsehood and trickery was the legitimate end
of diplomacy and statesmanship.  It was well known that there were great
preparations in Spain, Portugal, and the obedient Netherlands, by land
and sea.  But Sir Robert Sidney was persuaded that the expedition was
intended for Africa; even the Pope was completely mystified--to the
intense delight of Philip--and Burghley, enlightened by the sagacious
De Loo, was convinced, that even in case of a rupture, the whole strength
of the Spanish arms was to be exerted in reducing Friesland and
Overyssel.  But Walsingham was never deceived; for he had learned from
Demosthenes a lesson with which William the Silent, in his famous
Apology, had made the world familiar, that the only citadel against a
tyrant and a conqueror was distrust.

Alexander, much grieved that doubts should still be felt as to his
sincerity, renewed the most exuberant expressions of that sentiment,
together with gentle complaints against the dilatoriness which had
proceeded from the doubt.  Her Majesty had long been aware, he said,
of his anxiety to bring about a perfect reconciliation; but he had
waited, month after month, for her commissioners, and had waited in vain.
His hopes had been dashed to the ground.  The affair had been
indefinitely spun out, and he could not resist the conviction that her
Majesty had changed her mind.  Nevertheless, as Andrew de Loo was again
proceeding to England, the Duke seized the opportunity once more to kiss
her hand, and--although he had well nigh resolved to think no more on the
subject--to renew his declarations, that, if the much-coveted peace were
not concluded, the blame could not be imputed to him, and that he should
stand guiltless before God and the world.  He had done, and was still
ready to do, all which became a Christian and a man desirous of the
public welfare and tranquillity.

When Burghley read these fine phrases, he was much impressed;
and they were pronounced at the English court to be "very princely and
Christianly."  An elaborate comment too was drawn up by the comptroller
on every line of the letter.  "These be very good words," said the
comptroller.

But the Queen was even more pleased with the last proof of the Duke's
sincerity, than even Burghley and Croft had been.  Disregarding all the
warnings of Walsingham, she renewed her expressions of boundless
confidence in the wily Italian.  "We do assure you," wrote the Lords,
"and so you shall do well to avow it to the Duke upon our honours,
that her Majesty saith she thinketh both their minds to accord upon one
good and Christian meaning, though their ministers may perchance sound
upon a discord."  And she repeated her resolution to send over her
commissioners, so soon as the Duke had satisfied her as to the hostile
preparations.

We have now seen the good faith of the English Queen towards the Spanish
government.  We have seen her boundless trust in the sincerity of Farnese
and his master.  We have heard the exuberant professions of an honest
intention to bring about a firm and lasting peace, which fell from the
lips of Farnese and of his confidential agents.  It is now necessary to
glide for a moment into the secret cabinet of Philip, in order to satisfy
ourselves as to the value of all those professions.  The attention of the
reader is solicited to these investigations, because the year 1587 was a
most critical period in the history of English, Dutch, and European
liberty.  The coming year 1588 had been long spoken of in prophecy, as
the year of doom, perhaps of the destruction of the world, but it was in
1587, the year of expectation and preparation, that the materials were
slowly combining out of which that year's history was to be formed.

And there sat the patient letter-writer in his cabinet, busy with his
schemes.  His grey head was whitening fast.  He was sixty years of age.
His frame was slight, his figure stooping, his digestion very weak, his
manner more glacial and sepulchral than ever; but if there were a hard-
working man in Europe, that man was Philip II.  And there he sat at his
table, scrawling his apostilles.  The fine innumerable threads which
stretched across the surface of Christendom, and covered it as with a
net, all converged in that silent cheerless cell.  France was kept in a
state of perpetual civil war; the Netherlands had been converted into a
shambles; Ireland was maintained in a state of chronic rebellion;
Scotland was torn with internal feuds, regularly organized and paid for
by Philip; and its young monarch--"that lying King of Scots," as
Leicester called him--was kept in a leash ready to be slipped upon
England, when his master should give the word; and England herself was
palpitating with the daily expectation of seeing a disciplined horde of
brigands let loose upon her shores; and all this misery, past, present,
and future, was almost wholly due to the exertions of that grey-haired
letter-writer at his peaceful library-table.

At the very beginning of the year the King of Denmark had made an offer
to Philip of mediation.  The letter, entrusted to a young Count de
Rantzan, had been intercepted by the States--the envoy not having availed
himself, in time, of his diplomatic capacity, and having in consequence
been treated, for a moment, like a prisoner of war.  The States had
immediately addressed earnest letters of protest to Queen Elizabeth,
declaring that nothing which the enemy could do in war was half so
horrible to them as the mere mention of peace.  Life, honour, religion,
liberty, their all, were at stake, they said, and would go down in one
universal shipwreck, if peace should be concluded; and they implored her
Majesty to avert the proposed intercession of the Danish King.  Wilkes
wrote to Walsingham denouncing that monarch and his ministers as
stipendiaries of Spain, while, on the other hand, the Duke of Parma,
after courteously thanking the King for his offer of mediation, described
him to Philip as such a dogged heretic, that no good was to be derived
from him, except by meeting his fraudulent offers with an equally
fraudulent response.  There will be nothing lost, said Alexander, by
affecting to listen to his proposals, and meantime your Majesty must
proceed with the preparations against England.  This was in the first
week of the year 1587.

In February, and almost on the very day when Parma was writing those
affectionate letters to Elizabeth, breathing nothing but peace, he was
carefully conning Philip's directions in regard to the all-important
business of the invasion.  He was informed by his master, that one
hundred vessels, forty of them of largest size, were quite ready,
together with 12,000 Spanish infantry, including 3000 of the old legion,
and that there were volunteers more than enough.  Philip had also taken
note, he said, of Alexander's advice as to choosing the season when the
crops in England had just been got in, as the harvest of so fertile a
country would easily support an invading force; but he advised
nevertheless that the army should be thoroughly victualled at starting.
Finding that Alexander did not quite approve of the Irish part of the
plan, he would reconsider the point, and think more of the Isle of Wight;
but perhaps still some other place might be discovered, a descent upon
which might inspire that enemy with still greater terror and confusion.
It would be difficult for him, he said, to grant the 6000 men asked for
by the Scotch malcontents, without seriously weakening his armada; but
there must be no positive refusal, for a concerted action with the Scotch
lords and their adherents was indispensable.  The secret, said the King,
had been profoundly kept, and neither in Spain nor in Rome had anything
been allowed to transpire.  Alexander was warned therefore to do his best
to maintain the mystery, for the enemy was trying very hard to penetrate
their actions and their thoughts.

And certainly Alexander did his best.  He replied to his master, by
transmitting copies of the letters he had been writing with his own hand
to the Queen, and of the, pacific messages he had sent her through
Champagny.  and De Loo.  She is just now somewhat confused, said he, and
those of her counsellors who desire peace, are more eager, than ever for
negotiation.  She is very much afflicted with the loss of Deventer, and
is quarrelling with the French ambassador about the new conspiracy for
her assassination.  The opportunity is a good one, and if she writes an
answer to my letter, said Alexander, we can keep the negotiation, alive,
while, if she does not, 'twill be a proof that she has contracted leagues
with other parties.  But, in any event, the Duke fervently implored
Philip not to pause in his preparations for the great enterprise which he
had conceived in his royal breast.  So urgent for the invasion was the
peace-loving general.

He alluded also to the supposition that the quarrel between her Majesty
and the French envoy was a mere fetch, and only one of the results of
Bellievre's mission.  Whether that diplomatist had been sent to censure,
or in reality to approve, in the name of his master, of the Scottish
Queen's execution, Alexander would leave to be discussed by Don
Bernardino de Mendoza, the Spanish ambassador in Paris; but he was of
opinion that the anger of the Queen with France was a fiction, and her
supposed league with France and Germany against Spain a fact.  Upon this
point, as it appears from Secretary Walsingham's lamentations, the astute
Farnese was mistaken.

In truth he was frequently, led into error to the English policy the same
serpentine movement and venomous purpose which characterized his own; and
we have already seen; that Elizabeth was ready, on the contrary, to
quarrel with the States, with France, with all the world, if she could
only secure the good-will of Philip.

The French-matter, indissolubly connected in that monarch's schemes, with
his designs upon England and Holland, was causing Alexander much anxiety.
He foresaw great difficulty in maintaining that, indispensable civil war
in France, and thought that a peace might, some fine day, be declared
between Henry III. and the Huguenots, when least expected.  In
consequence, the Duke of Guise was becoming very importunate for Philip's
subsidies.  "Mucio comes begging to me," said Parma, "with the very
greatest earnestness, and utters nothing but lamentations and cries of
misery.  He asked for 25,000 of the 150,000 ducats promised him.  I gave
them.  Soon afterwards he writes, with just as much anxiety, for 25,000
more.  These I did not give; firstly, because I had them not," (which
would seem a sufficient reason) "and secondly, because I wished to
protract matters as much as possible.  He is constantly reminding me of
your Majesty's promise of 300,000 ducats, in case he comes to a rupture
with the King of France, and I always assure him that your Majesty will
keep all promises."

Philip, on his part, through the months of spring, continued to assure
his generalissimo of his steady preparations--by sea and land.  He had
ordered Mendoza to pay the Scotch lords the sum demanded by them, but not
till after they had done the deed as agreed upon; and as to the 6000 men,
he felt obliged, he said, to defer that matter for the moment; and to
leave the decision upon it to the Duke.  Farnese kept his sovereign
minutely informed of the negociations carried on through Champagny and De
Loo, and expressed his constant opinion that the Queen was influenced by
motives as hypocritical as his own.  She was only seeking, he said, to
deceive, to defraud, to put him to sleep, by those feigned negotiations,
while, she was making her combinations with France and Germany, for the
ruin of Spain.  There was no virtue to be expected from her, except she
was compelled thereto by pure necessity.  The English, he said, were
hated and abhorred by the natives of Holland and Zeeland, and it behoved
Philip to seize so favourable an opportunity for urging on his great plan
with all the speed in the world.  It might be that the Queen, seeing
these mighty preparations, even although not suspecting that she herself
was to be invaded, would tremble for her safety, if the Netherlands
should be crushed.  But if she succeeded in deceiving Spain, and putting
Philip and Parma to sleep, she might well boast of having made fools of
them all.  The negotiations for peace and the preparations for the
invasion should go simultaneously forward therefore, and the money would,
in consequence, come more sparingly to the Provinces from the English
coffers, and the disputes between England and the States would be
multiplied.  The Duke also begged to be informed whether any terms could
be laid down, upon which the King really would conclude peace; in order
that he might make no mistake for want of instructions or requisite
powers.  The condition of France was becoming more alarming every day, he
said.  In other words, there was an ever-growing chance of peace for that
distracted country.  The Queen of England was cementing a strong league
between herself, the French King, and the Huguenots; and matters were
looking very serious.  The impending peace in France would never do, and
Philip should prevent it in time, by giving Mucio his money.  Unless the
French are entangled and at war among themselves, it is quite clear, said
Alexander, that we can never think of carrying out our great scheme of
invading England.

The King thoroughly concurred in all that was said and done by his
faithful governor and general.  He had no intention of concluding a peace
on any terms whatever, and therefore could name no conditions; but he
quite approved of a continuance of the negotiations.  The English,
he was convinced, were utterly false on their part, and the King of
Denmark's proposition to-mediate was part and parcel of the same general
fiction.  He was quite sensible of the necessity of giving Mucio the
money to prevent a pacification in France, and would send letters of
exchange on Agostino Spinola for the 300,000 ducats.  Meantime Farnese
was to go on steadily with his preparations for the invasion.

The secretary-of-state, Don Juan de Idiaquez, also wrote most earnestly
on the great subject to the Duke.  "It is not to be exaggerated", he
said, "how set his Majesty is in the all-important business.  If you wish
to manifest towards him the most flattering obedience on earth, and to
oblige him as much as you could wish, give him this great satisfaction
this year.  Since you have money, prepare everything out there, conquer
all difficulties, and do the deed so soon as the forces of Spain and
Italy arrive, according to the plan laid down by your Excellency last
year.  Make use of the negotiations for peace for this one purpose, and
no more, and do the business like the man you are.  Attribute the liberty
of this advice to my desire to serve you more than any other, to my
knowledge of how much you will thereby gratify his Majesty, and to my
fear of his resentment towards you, in the contrary case."

And, on the same day, in order that there might be no doubt of the royal
sentiments, Philip expressed himself at length on the whole subject.  The
dealings of Farnese with the English, and his feeding them with hopes of
peace, would have given him more satisfaction, he observed, if it had
caused their preparations to slacken; but, on the contrary, their
boldness had increased.  They had perpetrated the inhuman murder of the
Queen of Scots, and moreover, not content with their piracies at sea and
in the Indies, they had dared to invade the ports of Spain, as would
appear in the narrative transmitted to Farnese of the late events at
Cadiz.  And although that damage was small, said Philip; there resulted a
very great obligation to take them 'seriously in hand.'  He declined
sending fill powers for treating; but in order to make use of the same
arts employed by the English, he preferred that Alexander should not
undeceive them, but desired him to express, as out of his own head; to
the negotiators, his astonishment that while they were holding such
language they should commit such actions.  Even their want of prudence in
thus provoking the King; when their strength was compared to his, should
be spoken of by Farnese as--wonderful, and he was to express the opinion
that his Majesty would think him much wanting in circumspection, should
he go on negotiating while they were playing such tricks.  "You must show
yourself very sensitive, about this event," continued Philip, "and you
must give them to understand that I am quite as angry as you.  You must
try to draw from them some offer of satisfaction--however false it will
be in reality--such as a proposal to recall the fleet, or an, assertion
that the deeds of Drake in Cadiz were without the knowledge and contrary
to the will of the Queen, and that she very much regrets them, or
something of that sort."

It has already been shown that Farnese was very successful in eliciting
from the Queen, through the mouth of Lord' Burghley, as ample a disavowal
and repudiation of Sir Francis Drake as the King could possibly desire.
Whether it would have the desired effect--of allaying the wrath of
Philip; might have been better foretold, could the letter, with which we
are now occupied, have been laid upon the Greenwich council-board.

"When you have got, such a disavowal," continued his Majesty, "you are to
act as if entirely taken in and imposed upon by them, and, pretending to
believe everything they tell you, you must renew the negotiations,
proceed to name commissioners, and propose a meeting upon neutral
territory.  As for powers; say that you, as my governor-general, will
entrust them to your deputies, in regard to the Netherlands.  For all
other matters, say that you have had full powers for many months, but
that you cannot exhibit them until conditions worthy of my acceptance
have been offered.--Say this only for the sake of appearance.  This is
the true way to take them in, and so the peace-commissioners may meet.
But to you only do I declare that my intention is that this shall never
lead to any result, whatever conditions maybe offered by them.  On the
contrary, all this is done--just as they do--to deceive them, and to cool
them in their preparations for defence, by inducing them to believe that
such preparations will be unnecessary.  You are well aware that the
reverse of all this is the truth, and that on our part there is to be no
slackness, but the greatest diligence in our efforts for the invasion of
England, for which we have already made the most abundant provision in
men, ships, and money, of which you are well aware."

Is it strange that the Queen of England was deceived?  Is it matter of
surprise, censure, or shame, that no English statesman was astute enough
or base enough to contend with such diplomacy, which seemed inspired only
by the very father of lies?

"Although we thus enter into negotiations," continued the King--unveiling
himself, with a solemn indecency, not agreeable to contemplate--"without
any intention of concluding them, you can always get out of them with
great honour, by taking umbrage about the point of religion and about
some other of the outrageous propositions which they are like to propose,
and of which there are plenty, in the letters of Andrew de Loo.  Your
commissioners must be instructed; to refer all important matters to your
personal decision.  The English will be asking for damages for money,
spent in assisting my rebels; your commissioners will contend that
damages are rather due to me.  Thus, and in other ways, time will be
agent.  Your own envoys are not to know the secret any more than the
English themselves.  I tell it to you only.  Thus you will proceed with
the negotiations, now, yielding on one point, and now insisting on
another, but directing all to the same object--to gain time while
proceeding with the preparation for the invasion, according to the plan
already agreed upon."

Certainly the most Catholic King seemed, in this remarkable letter to
have outdone himself; and Farnese--that sincere Farnese, in whose loyal,
truth-telling, chivalrous character, the Queen and her counsellors placed
such implicit reliance--could thenceforward no longer be embarrassed as
to the course he was to adopt.  To lie daily, through, thick, and thin,
and with every variety of circumstance and detail which; a genius fertile
in fiction could suggest, such was the simple rule prescribed by his
sovereign.  And the rule was implicitly obeyed, and the English sovereign
thoroughly deceived.  The secret confided only, to the faithful breast of
Alexander was religiously kept.  Even the Pope was outwitted.  His
Holiness proposed to, Philip the invasion of England, and offered a
million to further the plan.  He was most desirous to be informed if the
project was, resolved upon, and, if so, when it was to be accomplished.
The King took the Pope's million, but refused the desired information.
He answered evasively.  He had a very good will to invade the country, he
said, but there were great difficulties in the way.  After a time, the
Pope again tried to pry into the matter, and again offered the million
which Philip had only accepted for the time when it might be wanted;
giving him at the same time, to understand that it was not necessary at
that time, because there were then great impediments.  "Thus he is
pledged to give me the subsidy, and I am not pledged for the time," said
Philip, "and I keep my secret, which is the most important of all."

Yet after all, Farnese did not see his way clear towards the consummation
of the plan.  His army had wofully dwindled, and before he could
seriously set about ulterior matters, it would be necessary to take
the city of Sluys.  This was to prove--as already seen--a most arduous
enterprise.  He complained to Philip' of his inadequate supplies both in
men and money.  The project conceived in the royal breast was worth
spending millions for, he said, and although by zeal and devotion he
could accomplish something, yet after all he was no more than a man,
and without the necessary means the scheme could not succeed.  But
Philip, on the contrary, was in the highest possible spirits.  He had
collected more money, he declared than had ever been seen before in the
world.  He had two million ducats in reserve, besides the Pope's million;
the French were in a most excellent state of division, and the invasion
should be made this year without fail.  The fleet would arrive in the
English channel by the end of the summer; which would be exactly in
conformity with Alexander's ideas.  The invasion was to be threefold:
from Scotland, under the Scotch earls and their followers, with the money
and troops furnished by Philip; from the Netherlands, under Parma; and by
the great Spanish armada itself, upon the Isle of Wight.  Alexander must
recommend himself to God, in whose cause he was acting, and then do his
duty; which lay very plain before him.  If he ever wished to give his
sovereign satisfaction in his life; he was to do the deed that year,
whatever might betide.  Never could there be so fortunate a conjunction
of circumstances again.  France was in a state of revolution, the German
levies were weak, the Turk was fully occupied in Persia, an enormous mass
of money, over and above the Pope's million, had been got together, and
although the season was somewhat advanced, it was certain that the Duke
would conquer all impediments, and be the instrument by which his royal
master might render to God that service which he was so anxious to
perform.  Enthusiastic, though gouty, Philip grasped the pen in order to
scrawl a few words with his own royal hand.  "This business is of such
importance," he said, "and it is so necessary that it should not be
delayed, that I cannot refrain from urging it upon you as much as I can.
I should do it even more amply; if this hand would allow me, which has
been crippled with gout these several days, and my feet as well, and
although it is unattended with pain, yet it is an impediment to writing."

Struggling thus against his own difficulties, and triumphantly,
accomplishing a whole paragraph with disabled hand, it was natural that
the King should expect Alexander, then deep in the siege of Sluy's, to
vanquish all his obstacles as successfully; and to effect the conquest of
England so soon as the harvests of that kingdom should be garnered.

Sluy's was surrendered at last, and the great enterprise seemed opening
from hour to hour.  During the months of autumn; upon the very days when
those loving messages, mixed with gentle reproaches, were sent by
Alexander to Elizabeth, and almost at the self-same hours in which honest
Andrew de Loo was getting such head-aches by drinking the Queen's health
with Cosimo, and Champagny, the Duke and Philip were interchanging
detailed information as to the progress of the invasion.  The King
calculated that by the middle of September Alexander would have 30,000
men in the Netherlands ready for embarcation.--Marquis Santa Cruz was
announced as nearly ready to, sail for the English channel with 22,000
more, among whom were to be 16,000 seasoned Spanish infantry.  The
Marquis was then to extend the hand to Parma, and protect that passage to
England which the Duke was at once to effect.  The danger might be great
for so large a fleet to navigate the seas at so late a season of the
year; but Philip was sure that God, whose cause it was, would be pleased
to give good weather.  The Duke was to send, with infinite precautions of
secrecy, information which the Marquis would expect off Ushant, and be
quite ready to act so soon as Santa Cruz should arrive.  Most earnestly
and anxiously did the King deprecate any, thought of deferring the
expedition to another year.  If delayed, the obstacles of the following
summer--a peace in France, a peace between the Turk and Persia, and other
contingencies--would cause the whole project to fail, and Philip
declared, with much iteration, that money; reputation, honour, his
own character and that of Farnese, and God's service, were all at stake.
He was impatient at suggestions of difficulties occasionally, ventured by
the Duke, who was reminded that he had been appointed chief of the great
enterprise by the spontaneous choice of his master, and that all his
plans had been minutely followed.  "You are the author of the whole
scheme," said Philip, "and if it, is all to vanish into space, what kind
of a figure shall we cut the coming year?"  Again and again he referred
to the immense sum collected--such as never before had been seen since
the world was made--4,800,000 ducats with 2,000,000 in reserve, of which
he was authorized to draw for 500,000 in advance, to say nothing of the
Pope's million.

But Alexander,  while straining every nerve to obey his master's
wishes about the invasion, and to blind the English by the fictitious
negotiations, was not so sanguine as his sovereign.  In truth, there was
something puerile in the eagerness which Philip manifested.  He had made
up his mind that England was to be conquered that autumn, and had
endeavoured--as well as he could--to comprehend, the plans which his
illustrious general had laid down for accomplishing that purpose.  Of,
course; to any man of average intellect, or, in truth, to any man outside
a madhouse; it would seem an essential part of the conquest that the
Armada should arrive.  Yet--wonderful to relate-Philip, in his
impatience, absolutely suggested that the Duke might take possession of
England without waiting for Santa Cruz and his Armada.  As the autumn had
been wearing away, and there had been unavoidable delays about the
shipping in Spanish ports, the King thought it best not to defer matters
till, the winter.  "You are, doubtless, ready," he said to Farnese.
"If you think you can make the passage to England before the fleet from
Spain arrives, go at once.  You maybe sure that it will come ere long to
support, you.  But if, you prefer, to wait, wait.  The dangers of winter,
to the fleet and to your own person are to be regretted; but God, whose
cause it is; will protect you."

It was, easy to sit quite out of harm's way, and to make such excellent,
arrangements for smooth weather in the wintry channel, and for the.
conquest of a maritime and martial kingdom by a few flat bottoms.  Philip
had little difficulty on that score, but the affairs of France were not
quite to his mind.  The battle of Coutras, and the entrance of the German
and Swiss mercenaries into that country, were somewhat perplexing.
Either those auxiliaries of the Huguenots would be defeated, or they
would be victorious, or both parties would come to an agreement.  In the
first event, the Duke, after sending a little assistance to Mucio, was to
effect his passage to England at once.  In the second case, those troops,
even though successful, would doubtless be so much disorganized that it
might be still safe for Farnese to go on.  In the third contingency--that
of an accord--it would be necessary for him to wait till the foreign
troops had disbanded and left France.  He was to maintain all his forces
in perfect readiness, on pretext of the threatening aspect of French
matters and, so soon as the Swiss and Germane were dispersed, he was to
proceed to business without delay.  The fleet would be ready in Spain in
all November, but as sea-affairs were so doubtful, particularly in
winter, and as the Armada could not reach the channel till mid-winter;
the Duke was not to wait for its arrival.  "Whenever you see a favourable
opportunity," said Philip, "you must take care not to lose it, even if
the fleet has not made its appearance.  For you may be sure that it will
soon come to give you assistance, in one way or another."

Farnese had also been strictly enjoined to deal gently with the English,
after the conquest, so that they would have cause to love their new
master.  His troops were not to forget discipline after victory.  There
was to be no pillage or rapine.  The Catholics were to be handsomely
rewarded and all the inhabitants were to be treated with so much
indulgence that, instead of abhorring Parma and his soldiers, they would
conceive a strong affection for them all, as the source of so many
benefits.  Again the Duke was warmly commended for the skill with which
he had handled the peace negotiation.  It was quite right to appoint
commissioners, but it was never for an instant to be forgotten that the
sole object of treating was to take the English unawares.  "And therefore
do you guide them to this end," said the King with pious unction, "which
is what you owe to God, in whose service I  have engaged in this
enterprise, and to whom I have dedicated the whole."  The King of France,
too--that unfortunate Henry III., against whose throne and life Philip
maintained in constant pay an organized band of conspirators--was
affectionately adjured, through the Spanish envoy in Paris, Mendoza,--to
reflect upon the advantages to France of a Catholic king and kingdom of
England, in place of the heretics now in power.

But Philip, growing more and more sanguine, as those visions of fresh
crowns and conquered kingdoms rose before him in his solitary cell, had
even persuaded himself that the deed was already done.  In the early days
of December, he expressed a doubt whether his 14th November letter had
reached the Duke, who by that time was probably in England.  One would
have thought the King addressing a tourist just starting on a little
pleasure-excursion.  And this was precisely the moment when Alexander had
been writing those affectionate phrases to the Queen which had been
considered by the counsellors at Greenwich so "princely and Christianly,"
and which Croft had pronounced such "very good words."

If there had been no hostile, fleet to prevent, it was to be hoped, said
Philip, that, in the name of God, the passage had been made.  "Once
landed there," continued the King, "I am persuaded that you will give me
a good account of yourself, and, with the help of our Lord, that you will
do that service which I desire to render to Him, and that He will guide
our cause, which is His own, and of such great importance to His Church."
A part of the fleet would soon after arrive and bring six thousand
Spaniards, the Pope's million, and other good things, which might prove
useful to Parma, presupposing that they would find him established on the
enemy's territory.

This conviction that the enterprise had been already accomplished grew
stronger in the King's breast every day.  He was only a little disturbed
lest Farnese should have misunderstood that 14th November letter.
Philip--as his wont was--had gone into so many petty and puzzling
details, and had laid down rules of action suitable for various
contingencies, so easy to put comfortably upon paper, but which might
become perplexing in action, that it was no wonder he should be a little
anxious.  The third contingency suggested by him had really occurred.
There had been a composition between the foreign mercenaries and the
French King.  Nevertheless they had also been once or twice defeated, and
this was contingency number two.  Now which of the events would the Duke
consider as having really occurred.  It was to be hoped that he would
have not seen cause for delay, for in truth number three was not exactly
the contingency which existed.  France was still in a very satisfactory
state of discord and rebellion.  The civil war was by no means over.
There was small fear of peace that winter.  Give Mucio his pittance with
frugal hand, and that dangerous personage would ensure tranquillity for
Philip's project, and misery for Henry III. and his subjects for an
indefinite period longer.  The King thought it improbable that Farnese
could have made any mistake.  He expressed therefore a little anxiety at
having received no intelligence from him, but had great confidence that,
with the aid of the Lord and of with his own courage he had accomplished
the great exploit.  Philip had only, recommended delay in event of a
general peace in France--Huguenots, Royalists, Leaguers, and all.
This had not happened.  "Therefore, I trust," said the King; "that you--
perceiving that this is not contingency number three which was to justify
a pause--will have already executed the enterprise, and fulfilled my
desire.  I am confident that the deed is done, and that God has blessed
it, and I am now expecting the news from hour to hour."

But Alexander had not yet arrived in England.  The preliminaries for the
conquest caused him more perplexity than the whole enterprise occasioned
to Philip.  He was very short of funds.  The five millions were not to be
touched, except for the expenses of the invasion.  But as England was to
be subjugated, in order that rebellious Holland might be recovered, it
was hardly reasonable to go away leaving such inadequate forces in the
Netherlands as to ensure not only independence to the new republic, but
to hold out temptation for revolt to the obedient Provinces.  Yet this
was the dilemma in which the Duke was placed.  So much money had been set
aside for the grand project that there was scarcely anything for the
regular military business.  The customary supplies had not been sent.
Parma had leave to draw for six hundred thousand ducats, and he was able
to get that draft discounted on the Antwerp Exchange by consenting to
receive five hundred thousand, or sacrificing sixteen per cent. of the
sum.  A good number of transports, and scows had been collected, but
there had been a deficiency of money for their proper equipment, as the
five millions had been very slow in coming, and were still upon the road.
The whole enterprise was on the point of being sacrificed, according to
Farnese, for want of funds.  The time for doing the deed had arrived, and
he declared himself incapacitated by poverty.  He expressed his disgust
and resentment in language more energetic than courtly; and protested
that he was not to blame.  "I always thought," said he bitterly, "that
your Majesty would provide all that was necessary even in superfluity,
and not limit me beneath the ordinary.  I did not suppose, when it was
most important to have ready money, that I should be kept short, and not
allowed to draw certain sums by anticipation, which I should have done
had you not forbidden."

This was, through life, a striking characteristic of Philip.  Enormous
schemes were laid out with utterly inadequate provision for their
accomplishment, and a confident expectation entertained that wild,
visions were; in some indefinite way, to be converted into substantial
realities, without fatigue or personal exertion on his part, and with a
very trifling outlay of ready money.

Meantime the faithful Farnese did his best.  He was indefatigable night
and day in getting his boats together and providing his munitions of war.
He dug a canal from Sas de Gand--which was one of his principal depots--
all the way to Sluys, because the water-communication between those two
points was entirely in the hands of the Hollanders and Zeelanders.  The
rebel cruisers swarmed in the Scheldt, from, Flushing almost to Antwerp,
so that it was quite impossible for Parma's forces to venture forth at
all; and it also seemed hopeless to hazard putting to sea from Sluys.
At the same, time he had appointed his, commissioners to treat with the
English envoys already named by the Queen.  There had been much delay in
the arrival of those deputies, on account of the noise raised by
Barneveld and his followers; but Burghley was now sanguine that the
exposure of what he called the Advocate's seditious, false, and perverse
proceedings, would enable Leicester to procure the consent of the States
to a universal peace.

And thus, with these parallel schemes of invasion and negotiation,
spring; summer, and autumn, had worn away.  Santa Cruz was still with his
fleet in Lisbon, Cadiz, and the Azores; and Parma was in Brussels, when
Philip fondly imagined him established in Greenwich Palace.  When made
aware of his master's preposterous expectations, Alexander would have
been perhaps amused, had he not been half beside himself with
indignation.  Such folly seemed incredible.  There was not the slightest
appearance of a possibility of making a passage without the protection of
the Spanish fleet, he observed.  His vessels were mere transport-boats,
without the least power of resisting an enemy.  The Hollanders and
Zeelanders, with one hundred and forty cruisers, had shut him up in all
directions.  He could neither get out from Antwerp nor from Sluys.  There
were large English ships, too, cruising in the channel, and they were
getting ready in the Netherlands and in England "most furiously."  The
delays had been so great, that their secret had been poorly kept, and the
enemy was on his guard.  If Santa Cruz had come, Alexander declared that
he should have already been in England.  When he did come he should still
be prepared to make the passage; but to talk of such an attempt without
the Armada was senseless, and he denounced the madness of that
proposition to his Majesty in vehement and unmeasured terms.  His army,
by sickness and other causes, had been reduced to one-half the number
considered necessary for the invasion, and the rebels had established
regular squadrons in the Scheldt, in the very teeth of the forts, at
Lillo, Liefkenshoek, Saftingen, and other points close to Antwerp.  There
were so many of these war-vessels, and all in such excellent order, that
they were a most notable embarrassment to him, he observed, and his own
flotilla would run great risk of being utterly destroyed.  Alexander had
been personally superintending matters at Sluys, Ghent, and Antwerp, and
had strengthened with artillery the canal which he had constructed
between Sas and Sluys.  Meantime his fresh troops had been slowly
arriving, but much sickness prevailed among them.  The Italians were
dying fast, almost all the Spaniards were in hospital, and the others
were so crippled and worn out that it was most pitiable to behold them;
yet it was absolutely necessary that those who were in health should
accompany him to England, since otherwise his Spanish force would be
altogether too weak to do the service expected.  He had got together a
good number of transports.  Not counting his Antwerp fleet--which could
not stir from port, as he bitterly complained, nor be of any use, on
account of the rebel blockade--he had between Dunkerk and Newport
seventy-four vessels of various kinds fit for sea-service, one hundred
and fifty flat-bottoms (pleytas), and seventy riverhoys, all which were
to be assembled at Sluys, whence they would--so soon as Santa Cruz should
make his appearance--set forth for England.  This force of transports he
pronounced sufficient, when properly protected by the Spanish Armada, to
carry himself and his troops across the channel.  If, therefore, the
matter did not become publicly known, and if the weather proved
favourable, it was probable that his Majesty's desire would soon be
fulfilled according to the plan proposed.  The companies of light horse
and of arquebusmen, with which he meant to make his entrance into London,
had been clothed, armed, and mounted, he said, in a manner delightful to
contemplate, and those soldiers at least might be trusted--if they could
only effect their passage--to do good service, and make matters quite
secure.

But craftily as the King and Duke had been dealing, it had been found
impossible to keep such vast preparations entirely secret.  Walsingham
was in full possession of their plans down to the most minute details.
The misfortune was that he was unable to persuade his sovereign, Lord
Burghley, and others of the peace-party, as to the accuracy of his
information.  Not only was he thoroughly instructed in regard to the
number of men, vessels, horses, mules, saddles, spurs, lances, barrels of
beer and tons of biscuit, and other particulars of the contemplated
invasion, but he had even received curious intelligence as to the
gorgeous equipment of those very troops, with which the Duke was just
secretly announcing to the King his intention of making his triumphal
entrance into the English capital.  Sir Francis knew how many thousand
yards of cramoisy velvet, how many hundredweight of gold and silver
embroidery, how much satin and feathers, and what quantity of pearls and
diamonds; Farnese had been providing himself withal.  He knew the
tailors, jewellers, silversmiths, and haberdashers, with whom the great
Alexander--as he now began to be called--had been dealing;

     ["There is provided for lights a great number of torches, and so
     tempered that no water can put them out.  A great number of little
     mills for grinding corn, great store of biscuit baked and oxen
     salted, great number of saddles and boots also there is made 500
     pair of velvet shoes-red, crimson velvet, and in every cloister
     throughout the country great quantity of roses made of silk, white
     and red, which are to be badges for divers of his gentlemen.  By
     reason of these roses it is expected he is going for England.  There
     is sold to the Prince by John Angel, pergaman, ten hundred-weight of
     velvet, gold and silver to embroider his apparel withal.  The
     covering to his mules is most gorgeously embroidered with gold and
     silver, which carry his baggage.  There is also sold to him by the
     Italian merchants at least 670 pieces of velvet to apparel him and
     his train.  Every captain has received a gift from the Prince to
     make himself brave, and for Captain Corralini, an Italian, who hath
     one cornet of horse, I have seen with my eyes a saddle with the
     trappings of his horse, his coat and rapier and dagger, which cost
     3,500 French crowns.  (!!) All their lances are painted of divers
     colours, blue and white, green and White, and most part blood-red--
     so there is as great preparation for a triumph as for war.  A great
     number of English priests come to Antwerp from all places.  The
     commandment is given to all the churches to read the Litany daily
     for the prosperity of the Prince in his enterprise." John Giles to
     Walsingham, 4 Dec. 1587.(S. P. Office MS.)

     The same letter conveyed also very detailed information concerning
     the naval preparations by the Duke, besides accurate intelligence in
     regard to the progress of the armada in Cadiz and Lisbon.

     Sir William Russet wrote also from Flushing concerning these
     preparations in much the same strain; but it is worthy of note that
     he considered Farnese to be rather intending a movement against
     France.

     "The Prince of Parma," he said, "is making great preparations for
     war, and with all expedition means to march a great army, and for a
     triumph, the coats and costly, apparel for his own body doth exceed
     for embroidery, and beset with jewels; for all the embroiderers and
     diamond-cutters work both night and day, such haste is made.  Five
     hundred velvet coats of one sort for lances, and a great number of
     brave new coats made for horsemen; 30,000 men are ready, and gather
     in Brabant and Flanders.  It is said that there shall be in two days
     10,000 to do some great exploit in these parts, and 20,000 to march
     with the Prince into France, and for certain it is not known what
     way or how they shall march, but all are ready at an hour's warning
     --4,000 saddles, 4000 lances.  6,000 pairs of boots, 2,000 barrels of
     beer, biscuit sufficient for a camp of 20,000 men, &c.  The Prince
     hath received a marvellous costly garland or crown from the Pope,
     and is chosen chief of the holy league..."]

but when he spoke at the council-board, it was to ears wilfully deaf.
Nor was much concealed from the Argus-eyed politicians in the republic.
The States were more and more intractable.  They knew nearly all the
truth with regard to the intercourse between the Queen's government and
Farnese, and they suspected more than the truth.  The list of English
commissioners privately agreed upon between Burghley and De Loo was known
to Barneveld, Maurice, and Hohenlo, before it came to the ears of
Leicester.  In June, Buckhurst had been censured by Elizabeth for opening
the peace matter to members of the States, according to her bidding, and
in July Leicester was rebuked for exactly the opposite delinquency.  She
was very angry that he had delayed the communication of her policy so
long, but she expressed her anger only when that policy had proved so
transparent as to make concealment hopeless.  Leicester, as well as
Buckhurst, knew that it was idle to talk to the Netherlanders of peace,
because of their profound distrust in every word that came from Spanish
or Italian lips; but Leicester, less frank than Buckhurst, preferred to
flatter his sovereign, rather than to tell her unwelcome truths.  More
fortunate than Buckhurst, he was rewarded for his flattery by boundless
affection, and promotion to the very highest post in England when the
hour of England's greatest peril had arrived, while the truth-telling
counsellor was consigned to imprisonment and disgrace.  When the Queen
complained sharply that the States were mocking her, and that she was
touched in honour at the prospect of not keeping her plighted word to
Farnese, the Earl assured her that the Netherlanders were fast changing
their views; that although the very name of peace had till then been
odious and loathsome, yet now, as coming from her Majesty, they would
accept it with thankful hearts.

The States, or the leading members of that assembly, factious fellows,
pestilent and seditious knaves, were doing their utmost, and were singing
sirens' songs' to enchant and delude the people, but they were fast
losing their influence--so warmly did the country desire to conform to
her Majesty's pleasure.  He expatiated, however, upon the difficulties in
his path.  The knowledge possessed by the pestilent fellows as to the
actual position of affairs, was very mischievous.  It was honey to
Maurice and Hohenlo, he said, that the Queen's secret practices with
Farnese had thus been discovered.  Nothing could be more marked than the
jollity with which the ringleaders hailed these preparations for peace-
making, for they now felt certain that the government of their country
had been fixed securely in their own hands.  They were canonized, said
the Earl, for their hostility to peace.

Should not this conviction, on the part of men who had so many means of
feeling the popular pulse, have given the Queen's government pause?  To
serve his sovereign in truth, Leicester might have admitted a possibility
at least of honesty on the part of men who were so ready to offer up
their lives for their country.  For in a very few weeks ho was obliged to
confess that the people were no longer so well disposed to acquiesce in
her Majesty's policy.  The great majority, both of the States and the
people, were in favour, he agreed, of continuing the war.  The
inhabitants of the little Province of Holland alone, he said, had avowed
their determination to maintain their rights--even if obliged to fight
single-handed--and to shed the last drop in their veins, rather than to
submit again to Spanish tyranny.  This seemed a heroic resolution, worthy
the sympathy of a brave Englishman, but the Earl's only comment upon it
was, that it proved the ringleaders "either to be traitors or else the
most blindest asses in the world."  He never scrupled, on repeated
occasions, to insinuate that Barneveld, Hohenlo, Buys, Roorda, Sainte
Aldegonde, and the Nassaus, had organized a plot to sell their country to
Spain.  Of this there was not the faintest evidence, but it was the only
way in which he chose to account for their persistent opposition to the
peace-negotiations, and to their reluctance to confer absolute power on
himself.  "'Tis a crabbed, sullen, proud kind of people," said he, "and
bent on establishing a popular government,"--a purpose which seemed
somewhat inconsistent with the plot for selling their country to Spain,
which he charged in the same breath on the same persons.

Early in August, by the Queen's command, he had sent a formal
communication respecting the private negotiations to the States, but he
could tell them no secret.  The names of the commissioners, and even the
supposed articles of a treaty already concluded, were flying from town to
town, from mouth to mouth, so that the Earl pronounced it impossible for
one, not on the spot, to imagine the excitement which existed.

He had sent a state-counsellor, one Bardesius, to the Hague, to open the
matter; but that personage had only ventured to whisper a word to one or
two members of the States, and was assured that the proposition, if made,
would raise such a tumult of fury, that he might fear for his life.  So
poor Bardesius came back to Leicester, fell on his knees, and implored
him; at least to pause in these fatal proceedings.  After an interval, he
sent two eminent statesmen, Valk and Menin, to lay the subject before the
assembly.  They did so, and it was met by fierce denunciation.  On their
return, the Earl, finding that so much violence had been excited,
pretended that they had misunderstood his meaning, and that he had never
meant to propose peace-negotiations.  But Valk and Menin were too old
politicians to be caught in such a trap, and they produced a brief, drawn
up in Italian--the foreign language best understood by the Earl--with his
own corrections and interlineations, so that he was forced to admit that
there had been no misconception.

Leicester at last could no longer doubt that he was universally odious in
the Provinces.  Hohenlo, Barneveld, and the rest, who had "championed the
country against the peace," were carrying all before them.  They had
persuaded the people, that the "Queen was but a tickle stay for them,"
and had inflated young Maurice with vast ideas of his importance, telling
him that he was "a natural patriot, the image of his noble father, whose
memory was yet great among them, as good reason, dying in their cause, as
be had done."  The country was bent on a popular government, and on
maintaining the war.  There was no possibility, he confessed, that they
would ever confer the authority on him which they had formerly bestowed.
The Queen had promised, when he left England the second time, that his
absence should be for but three months, and he now most anxiously claimed
permission to depart.  Above all things, he deprecated being employed as
a peace-commissioner.  He was, of all men, the most unfit for such a
post.  At the same time he implored the statesmen at home to be wary in
selecting the wisest persons for that arduous duty, in order that the
peace might be made for Queen Elizabeth, as well as for King Philip.
He strongly recommended, for that duty, Beale, the councillor, who with
Killigrew had replaced the hated Wilkes and the pacific Bartholomew
Clerk.  "Mr. Beale, brother-in-law to Walsingham, is in my books a
prince," said the Earl.  "He was drowned in England, but most useful in
the Netherlands.  Without him I am naked."

And at last the governor told the Queen what Buckhurst and Walsingham had
been perpetually telling her, that the Duke of Parma meant mischief; and
he sent the same information as to hundreds of boats preparing, with six
thousand shirts for camisados, 7000 pairs of wading boots, and saddles,
stirrups, and spurs, enough for a choice band of 3000 men.  A shrewd
troop, said the Earl, of the first soldiers in Christendom, to be landed
some fine morning in England.  And he too had heard of the jewelled suits
of cramoisy velvet, and all the rest of the finery with which the
triumphant Alexander was intending to astonish London.  "Get horses
enough, and muskets enough in England," exclaimed Leicester, "and then
our people will not be beaten, I warrant you, if well led."

And now, the governor--who, in order to soothe his sovereign and comply
with her vehement wishes, had so long misrepresented the state of public
feeling--not only confessed that Papists and Protestants, gentle and
simple, the States and the people, throughout the republic, were all
opposed to any negotiation with the enemy, but lifted up his own voice,
and in earnest language expressed his opinion of the Queen's infatuation.

"Oh, my Lord, what a treaty is this for peace," said he to Burghley,
"that we must treat, altogether disarmed and weakened, and the King
having made his forces stronger than ever he had known in these parts,
besides what is coming out, of Spain, and yet we will presume of good
conditions.  It grieveth me to the heart.  But I fear you will all smart
for it, and I pray God her Majesty feel it not, if it be His blessed
will.  She meaneth well and sincerely to have peace, but God knows that
this is not the way.  Well, God Almighty defend us and the realm, and
especially her Majesty.  But look for a sharp war, or a miserable peace,
to undo others and ourselves after."

Walsingham, too, was determined not to act as a commissioner.  If his
failing health did not serve as an excuse, he should be obliged to
refuse, he said, and so forfeit her Majesty's favour, rather than be
instrumental in bringing about her ruin, and that of his country.  Never
for an instant had the Secretary of State faltered in his opposition to
the timid policy of Burghley.  Again and again he had detected the
intrigues of the Lord-Treasurer and Sir James Croft, and ridiculed the
"comptroller's peace."

And especially did Walsingham bewail the implicit confidence which the
Queen placed in the sugary words of Alexander, and the fatal parsimony
which caused her to neglect defending herself against Scotland; for he
was as well informed as was Farnese himself of Philip's arrangements with
the Scotch lords, and of the subsidies in men and money by which their
invasion of England was to be made part of the great scheme.  "No one
thing," sighed Walsingham, "doth more prognosticate an alteration of this
estate, than that a prince of her Majesty's judgment should neglect, in
respect of a little charges, the stopping of so dangerous a gap .  .  .
.  .  The manner of our cold and careless proceeding here, in this time
of peril, maketh me to take no comfort of my recovery of health, for that
I see, unless it shall please God in mercy and miraculously to preserve
us, we cannot long stand."

Leicester, finding himself unable to counteract the policy of Barneveld
and his party, by expostulation or argument, conceived a very dangerous
and criminal project before he left the country.  The facts are somewhat
veiled in mystery; but he was suspected, on weighty evidence, of a design
to kidnap both Maurice and Barneveld, and carry them off to England.  Of
this intention, which was foiled at any rate, before it could be carried
into execution, there is perhaps not conclusive proof, but it has already
been shown, from a deciphered letter, that the Queen had once given
Buckhurst and Wilkes peremptory orders to seize the person of Hohenlo,
and it is quite possible that similar orders may have been received at a
later moment with regard to the young Count and the Advocate.  At any
rate, it is certain that late in the autumn, some friends of Barneveld
entered his bedroom, at the Hague, in the dead of night, and informed him
that a plot was on foot to lay violent hands upon him, and that an armed
force was already on its way to execute this purpose of Leicester, before
the dawn of day.  The Advocate, without loss of time, took his departure
for Delft, a step which was followed, shortly afterwards, by Maurice.

Nor was this the only daring--stroke which the Earl had meditated.
During the progress of the secret negotiations with Parma, he had not
neglected those still more secret schemes to which he had occasionally
made allusion.  He had determined, if possible, to obtain possession of
the most important cities in Holland and Zeeland.  It was very plain to
him, that he could no longer hope, by fair means, for the great authority
once conferred upon him by the free will of the States.  It was his
purpose, therefore, by force and stratagem to recover his lost power.
We have heard the violent terms in which both the Queen and the Earl
denounced the men who accused the English government of any such
intention.  It had been formally denied by the States-General that
Barneveld had ever used the language in that assembly with which he had
been charged.  He had only revealed to them the exact purport of the
letter to Junius, and of the Queen's secret instructions to Leicester.
Whatever he may have said in private conversation, and whatever
deductions he may have made among his intimate friends, from the admitted
facts in the case, could hardly be made matters of record.  It does not
appear that he, or the statesmen who acted with him, considered the Earl
capable of a deliberate design to sell the cities, thus to be acquired,
to Spain, as the price of peace for England.  Certainly Elizabeth would
have scorned such a crime, and was justly indignant at rumours prevalent
to that effect; but the wrath of the Queen and of her favourite were,
perhaps, somewhat simulated, in order to cover their real mortification
at the discovery of designs on the part of the Earl which could not be
denied.  Not only had they been at last compelled to confess these
negotiations, which for several months had been concealed and stubbornly
denied, but the still graver plots of the Earl to regain his much-coveted
authority had been, in a startling manner, revealed.  The leaders of the
States-General had a right to suspect the English Earl of a design to
reenact the part of the Duke of Anjou, and were justified in taking
stringent measures to prevent a calamity, which, as they believed, was
impending over their little commonwealth.  The high-handed dealings of
Leicester in the city of Utrecht have been already described.  The most
respectable and influential burghers of the place had been imprisoned and
banished, the municipal government wrested from the hands to which it
legitimately belonged, and confided to adventurers, who wore the cloak of
Calvinism to conceal their designs, and a successful effort had been
made, in the name of democracy, to eradicate from one ancient province
the liberty on which it prided itself.

In the course of the autumn, an attempt was made to play the same game at
Amsterdam.  A plot was discovered, before it was fairly matured, to seize
the magistrates of that important city, to gain possession of the
arsenals, and to place the government in the hands of well-known
Leicestrians.  A list of fourteen influential citizens, drawn up in the
writing of Burgrave, the Earl's confidential secretary, was found, all of
whom, it was asserted, had been doomed to the scaffold.

The plot to secure Amsterdam had failed, but, in North Holland, Medenblik
was held firmly for Leicester, by Diedrich Sonoy, in the very teeth of
the States.  The important city of Enkhuyzen, too, was very near being
secured for the Earl, but a still more significant movement was made at
Leyden.  That heroic city, ever since the famous siege of 1574, in which
the Spaniard had been so signally foiled, had distinguished itself by
great liberality of sentiment in religious matters.  The burghers were
inspired by a love of country, and a hatred of oppression, both civil
and, ecclesiastical; and Papists and Protestants, who had fought side by
side against the common foe, were not disposed to tear each other to
pieces, now that he had been excluded from their gates.  Meanwhile,
however, refugee Flemings and Brabantines had sought an asylum in the
city, and being, as usual, of the strictest sect of the Calvinists were
shocked at the latitudinarianism which prevailed.  To the honour of the
city--as it seems to us now--but, to their horror, it was even found that
one or two Papists had seats in the magistracy.  More than all this,
there was a school in the town kept by a Catholic, and Adrian van der
Werff himself--the renowned burgomaster, who had sustained the city
during the dreadful leaguer of 1574, and who had told the famishing
burghers that they might eat him if they liked, but that they should
never surrender to the Spaniards while he remained alive--even Adrian van
der Werff had sent his son to this very school?  To the clamour made by
the refugees against this spirit of toleration, one of the favourite
preachers in the town, of Arminian tendencies, had declared in the
pulpit, that he would as lieve see the Spanish as the Calvinistic
inquisition established over his country; using an expression, in regard
to the church of Geneva, more energetic than decorous.

It was from Leyden that the chief opposition came to a synod, by which a
great attempt was to be made towards subjecting the new commonwealth to a
masked theocracy; a scheme which the States of Holland had resisted with
might and main.  The Calvinistic party, waxing stronger in Leyden,
although still in a minority, at last resolved upon a strong effort to
place the city in the hands of that great representative of Calvinism,
the Earl of Leicester.  Jacques Volmar, a deacon of the church, Cosmo de
Pescarengis, a Genoese captain of much experience in the service of the
republic, Adolphus de Meetkerke, former president of Flanders, who had
been, by the States, deprived of the seat in the great council to which
the Earl had appointed him; Doctor Saravia, professor of theology in the
university, with other deacons, preachers, and captains, went at
different times from Leyden to Utrecht, and had secret interviews with
Leicester.

A plan was at last agreed upon, according to which, about the middle of
October, a revolution should be effected in Leyden.  Captain Nicholas de
Maulde, who had recently so much distinguished himself in the defence of
Sluys, was stationed with two companies of States' troops in the city.
He had been much disgusted--not without reason--at the culpable
negligence through which the courageous efforts of the Sluys garrison
had been set at nought, and the place sacrificed, when it might so easily
have been relieved; and he ascribed the whole of the guilt to Maurice,
Hohenlo, and the States, although it could hardly be denied that at least
an equal portion belonged to Leicester and his party.  The young captain
listened, therefore, to a scheme propounded to him by Colonel Cosine, and
Deacon Volmar, in the name of Leicester.  He agreed, on a certain day, to
muster his company, to leave the city by the Delft gate--as if by command
of superior authority--to effect a junction with Captain Heraugiere,
another of the distinguished malcontent defenders of Sluys, who was
stationed, with his command, at Delft, and then to re-enter Leyden, take
possession of the town-hall, arrest all the magistrates, together with
Adrian van der Werff, ex-burgomaster, and proclaim Lord Leicester, in the
name of Queen Elizabeth, legitimate master of the city.  A list of
burghers, who were to be executed, was likewise agreed upon, at a final
meeting of the conspirators in a hostelry, which bore the ominous name of
'The Thunderbolt.'  A desire had been signified by Leicester, in the
preliminary interviews at Utrecht, that all bloodshed, if possible,
should be spared, but it was certainly an extravagant expectation,
considering the, temper, the political convictions, and the known courage
of the Leyden burghers, that the city would submit, without a struggle,
to this invasion of all their rights.  It could hardly be doubted that
the streets would run red with blood, as those of Antwerp had done, when
a similar attempt, on the part of Anjou, had been foiled.

Unfortunately for the scheme, a day or two before the great stroke was to
be hazarded, Cosmo de Pescarengis had been accidentally arrested for
debt.  A subordinate accomplice, taking alarm, had then gone before the
magistrate and revealed the plot.  Volmar and de Maulde fled at once, but
were soon arrested in the neighbourhood.  President de Meetkerke,
Professor Saravia, the preacher Van der Wauw, and others most
compromised, effected their escape.  The matter was instantly laid before
the States of Holland by the magistracy of Leyden, and seemed of the
gravest moment.  In the beginning of the year, the fatal treason of York
and Stanley had implanted a deep suspicion of Leicester in the hearts of
almost all the Netherlanders, which could not be eradicated.  The painful
rumours concerning the secret negotiations with Spain, and the design
falsely attributed to the English Queen, of selling the chief cities of
the republic to Philip as the price of peace, and of reimbursement for
expenses incurred by her, increased the general excitement to fever.  It
was felt by the leaders of the States that as mortal a combat lay before
them with the Earl of Leicester, as with the King of Spain, and that it
was necessary to strike a severe blow, in order to vindicate their
imperilled authority.

A commission was appointed by the high court of Holland, acting in
conjunction with the States of the Provinces, to try the offenders.
Among the commissioners were Adrian van der Werff, John van der Does, who
had been military commandant of Leyden during the siege, Barneveld, and
other distinguished personages, over whom Count Maurice presided.  The
accused were subjected to an impartial trial.  Without torture, they
confessed their guilt.  It is true, however, that Cosmo was placed within
sight of the rack.  He avowed that his object had been to place the city
under the authority of Leicester, and to effect this purpose, if
possible, without bloodshed.  He declared that the attempt was to be made
with the full knowledge and approbation of the Earl, who had promised him
the command of a regiment of twelve companies, as a recompense for his
services, if they proved successful.  Leicester, said Cosmo, had also
pledged himself, in case the men, thus executing his plans, should be
discovered and endangered, to protect and rescue them, even at the
sacrifice of all his fortune, and of the office he held.  When asked if
he had any written statement from his Excellency to that effect, Cosmo
replied, no, nothing but his princely word which he had voluntarily
given.

Volmar made a similar confession.  He, too, declared that he had acted
throughout the affair by express command of the Earl of Leicester.  Being
asked if he had any written evidence of the fact, he, likewise, replied
in the negative.  "Then his Excellency will unquestionably deny your
assertion," said the judges.  "Alas, then am I a dead man," replied
Volmar, and the unfortunate deacon never spoke truer words.  Captain de
Maulde also confessed his crime.  He did not pretend, however, to have
had any personal communication with Leicester, but said that the affair
had been confided to him by Colonel Cosmo, on the express authority of
the Earl, and that he had believed himself to be acting in obedience to
his Excellency's commands.

On the 26th October, after a thorough investigation, followed by a full
confession on the part of the culprits, the three were sentenced to
death.  The decree was surely a most severe one.  They had been guilty of
no actual crime, and only in case of high treason could an intention to
commit a crime be considered, by the laws of the state, an offence
punishable with death.  But it was exactly because it was important to
make the crime high treason that the prisoners were condemned.  The
offence was considered as a crime not against Leyden, but as an attempt
to levy war upon a city which was a member of the States of Holland and
of the United States.  If the States were sovereign, then this was a
lesion of their sovereignty.  Moreover, the offence had been aggravated
by the employment of United States' troops against the commonwealth of
the United States itself.  To cut off the heads of these prisoners was a
sharp practical answer to the claims of sovereignty by Leicester, as
representing the people, and a terrible warning to all who might, in
future; be disposed to revive the theories of Deventer and Burgrave.

In the case of De Maulde the punishment seemed especially severe.  His
fate excited universal sympathy, and great efforts were made to obtain
his pardon.  He was a universal favourite; he was young; he was very
handsome; his manners were attractive; he belonged to an ancient and
honourable race.  His father, the Seigneur de Mansart, had done great
services in the war of independence, had been an intimate friend of the
great Prince of Orange, and had even advanced large sums of money to
assist his noble efforts to liberate the country.  Two brothers of the
young captain had fallen in the service of the republic.  He, too, had
distinguished himself at Ostend, and his gallantry during the recent
siege of Sluys had been in every mouth, and had excited the warm applause
of so good a judge of soldiership as the veteran Roger Williams.  The
scars of the wounds received in the desperate conflicts of that siege
were fresh upon his breast.  He had not intended to commit treason, but,
convinced by the sophistry of older soldiers than himself, as well as by
learned deacons and theologians, he had imagined himself doing his duty,
while obeying the Earl of Leicester.  If there were ever a time for
mercy, this seemed one, and young Maurice of Nassau might have
remembered, that even in the case of the assassins who had attempted the
life of his father, that great-hearted man had lifted up his voice--which
seemed his dying one--in favour of those who had sought his life.

But they authorities were inexorable.  There was no hope of a mitigation
of punishment, but a last effort was made, under favour of a singular
ancient custom, to save the life of De Maulde.  A young lady of noble
family in Leyden--Uytenbroek by name--claimed the right of rescuing the
condemned malefactor, from the axe, by appearing upon the scaffold, and
offering to take him for her husband.

Intelligence was brought to the prisoner in his dungeon, that the young,
lady had made the proposition, and he was told to be of good cheer: But
he refused to be comforted. He was slightly acquainted with the gentle-
woman, he observed; and doubted much whether her request would be
granted.  Moreover if contemporary chronicle can be trusted he even
expressed a preference for the scaffold, as the milder fate of the two.
The lady, however, not being aware of those uncomplimentary sentiments,
made her proposal to the magistrates, but was dismissed with harsh
rebukes.  She had need be ashamed, they said; of her willingness to take
a condemned traitor for her husband.  It was urged, in her behalf, that
even in the cruel Alva's time, the ancient custom had been respected,
and that victims had been saved from the executioners, on a demand in
marriage made even by women of abandoned character.  But all was of no
avail.  The prisoners were executed on the 26th October, the same day
on which the sentence had been pronounced.  The heads of Volmar and Cosmo
were exposed on one of the turrets of the city.  That of Maulde was
interred with his body.

The Earl was indignant when he heard of the event.  As there had been no
written proof of his complicity in the conspiracy, the judges had thought
it improper to mention his name in the sentences.  He, of course, denied
any knowledge of the plot, and its proof rested therefore only on the
assertion of the prisoners themselves, which, however, was
circumstantial, voluntary, and generally believed!

France, during the whole of this year of expectation, was ploughed
throughout its whole surface by perpetual civil war.  The fatal edict of
June, 1585, had drowned the unhappy land in blood.  Foreign armies,
called in by the various contending factions, ravaged its-fair territory,
butchered its peasantry, and changed its fertile plains to a wilderness.
The unhappy creature who wore the crown of Charlemagne and of Hugh Capet,
was but the tool in the hands of the most profligate and designing of his
own subjects, and of foreigners.  Slowly and surely the net, spread by
the hands of his own mother, of his own prime minister, of the Duke of
Guise, all obeying the command and receiving the stipend of Philip,
seemed closing over him.  He was without friends, without power to know
his friends, if he had them.  In his hatred to the Reformation, he had
allowed himself to be made the enemy of the only man who could be his
friend, or the friend of France.  Allied with his mortal foe, whose
armies were strengthened by contingents from Parma's forces, and paid for
by Spanish gold, he was forced to a mock triumph over the foreign
mercenaries who came to save his crown, and to submit to the defeat of
the flower of his chivalry, by the only man who could rescue France from
ruin, and whom France could look up to with respect.

For, on the 20th October, Henry of Navarre had at last gained a victory.
After twenty-seven years of perpetual defeat, during which they had been
growing stronger and stronger, the Protestants had met the picked troops
of Henry III., under the Due de Joyeuse, near the burgh of Contras.  His
cousins Conde and Soissons each commanded a wing in the army of the
Warnese.  "You are both of my family," said Henry, before the engagement,
"and the Lord so help me, but I will show you that I am the eldest born."
And during that bloody day the white plume was ever tossing where the
battle, was fiercest.  "I choose to show myself.  They shall see the
Bearnese," was his reply to those who implored him to have a care for his
personal safety.  And at last, when the day was done, the victory gained,
and more French nobles lay dead on the field, as Catharine de' Medici
bitterly declared, than had fallen in a battle for twenty years; when two
thousand of the King's best troops had been slain, and when the bodies of
Joyeuse and his brother had been laid out in the very room where the
conqueror's supper, after the battle, was served, but where he refused,
with a shudder, to eat, he was still as eager as before--had the wretched
Valois been possessed of a spark of manhood, or of intelligence--to
shield him and his kingdom from the common enemy.'

For it could hardly be doubtful, even to Henry III., at that moment, that
Philip II. and his jackal, the Duke of Guise, were pursuing him to the
death, and that, in his breathless doublings to escape, he had been
forced to turn upon his natural protector.  And now Joyeuse was defeated
and slain.  Had it been my brother's son," exclaimed Cardinal de Bourbon,
weeping and wailing, "how much better it would have been."  It was not
easy to slay the champion of French Protestantism; yet, to one less
buoyant, the game, even after the brilliant but fruitless victory of
Contras, might have seemed desperate.  Beggared and outcast, with
literally scarce a shirt to his back, without money to pay a corporal's
guard, how was he to maintain an army?

But 'Mucio' was more successful than Joyeuse had been, and the German and
Swiss mercenaries who had come across the border to assist the Bearnese,
were adroitly handled by Philip's great stipendiary.  Henry of Valois,
whose troops had just been defeated at Contras, was now compelled to
participate in a more fatal series of triumphs.  For alas, the victim had
tied himself to the apron-string of "Madam League," and was paraded by
her, in triumph, before the eyes of his own subjects and of the world.
The passage of the Loire by the auxiliaries was resisted; a series of
petty victories was gained by Guise, and, at last, after it was obvious
that the leaders of the legions had been corrupted with Spanish ducats,
Henry allowed them to depart, rather than give the Balafre opportunity
for still farther successes.

Then came the triumph in Paris--hosannahs in the churches, huzzas in the
public places--not for the King, but for Guise.  Paris, more madly in
love with her champion than ever, prostrated herself at his feet.  For
him paeans as to a deliverer.  Without him the ark would have fallen into
the hands of the Philistines.  For the Valois, shouts of scorn from the
populace, thunders from the pulpit, anathemas from monk and priest,
elaborate invectives from all the pedants of the Sorbonne, distant
mutterings of excommunication from Rome--not the toothless beldame of
modern days, but the avenging divinity of priest-rid monarchs.  Such were
the results of the edicts of June.  Spain and the Pope had trampled upon
France, and the populace in her capital clapped their hands and jumped
for joy.  "Miserable country miserable King," sighed an illustrious
patriot, "whom his own countrymen wish rather to survive, than to die to
defend him!  Let the name of Huguenot and of Papist be never heard of
more.  Let us think only of the counter-league.  Is France to be saved by
opening all its gates to Spain?  Is France to be turned out of France, to
make a lodging for the Lorrainer and the Spaniard?"  Pregnant questions,
which could not yet be answered, for the end was not yet.  France was to
become still more and more a wilderness.  And well did that same brave
and thoughtful lover, of his: country declare, that he who should
suddenly awake from a sleep of twenty-five years, and revisit that once
beautiful land, would deem himself transplanted to a barbarous island of
cannibals.--[Duplessis Mornay, 'Mem.' iv. 1-34.]

It had now become quite obvious that the game of Leicester was played
out.  His career--as it has now been fully exhibited--could have but one
termination.  He had made himself thoroughly odious to the nation whom he
came to govern.  He had lost for ever the authority once spontaneously
bestowed; and he had attempted in vain, both by fair means and foul, to
recover that power.  There was nothing left him but retreat.  Of this he
was thoroughly convinced.  He was anxious to be gone, the republic most
desirous to be rid of him, her Majesty impatient to have her favourite
back again.  The indulgent Queen, seeing nothing to blame in his conduct,
while her indignation, at the attitude maintained by the Provinces was
boundless, permitted him, accordingly, to return; and in her letter to
the States, announcing this decision, she took a fresh opportunity of
emptying her wrath upon their heads.

She told them, that, notwithstanding her frequent messages to them,
signifying her evil contentment with their unthankfulness for her
exceeding great benefits, and with their gross violations of their
contract with herself and with Leicester, whom they had, of their own
accord, made absolute governor without her instigation; she had never
received any good answer to move, her to commit their sins to oblivion,
nor had she remarked, any amendment in their conduct.  On the contrary,
she complained: that they daily increased their offences, most
notoriously in the sight of--the world and in so many points that she
lacked words to express them in one letter.  She however thought it worth
while to allude to some of their transgressions.  She, declared that
their sinister, or rather barbarous interpretation of her conduct had
been notorious in perverting and falsifying her princely and Christian
intentions; when she imparted to them the overtures that had been made to
her for a treaty of peace for herself and for them with the King of
Spain.  Yet although she had required their allowance, before she would
give her assent, she had been grieved that the world should see what
impudent untruths had been forged upon her, not only by their.
sufferance; but by their special permission for her Christian good
meaning towards them.  She denounced the statements as to her having
concluded a treaty, not only without their knowledge; but with the
sacrifice of their liberty and religion, as utterly false, either for
anything done in act, or intended in thought, by her.  She complained
that upon this most false ground had been heaped a number of like
untruths and malicious slanders against her cousin Leicester, who had
hazarded his life, spend his substance, left his native country, absented
himself from her, and lost his time, only for their service.  It had been
falsely stated among them, she said, that the Earl had come over the last
time, knowing that peace had been secretly concluded.  It was false that
he had intended to surprise divers of their towns, and deliver them to
the King of Spain.  All such untruths contained matter so improbable,
that it was most, strange that any person; having any sense, could
imagine them correct.  Having thus slightly animadverted upon their
wilfulness, unthankfulness, and bad government, and having, in very
plain English, given them the lie, eight distinct and separate times
upon a single page, she proceeded to inform them that she had recalled
her cousin Leicester, having great cause to use his services in England,
and not seeing how, by his tarrying there, he could either profit them or
herself.  Nevertheless she protested herself not void of compassion for
their estate, and for the pitiful condition of the great multitude of
kind and godly people, subject to the miseries which, by the States
government, were like to fall upon them, unless God should specially
interpose; and she had therefore determined, for the time, to continue
her subsidies, according to the covenant between them.  If, meantime, she
should conclude a peace with Spain, she promised to them the same care
for their country as for her own.

Accordingly the Earl, after despatching an equally ill-tempered letter to
the States, in which he alluded, at unmerciful length, to all the old
grievances, blamed them for the loss of Sluys, for which place he
protested that they had manifested no more interest than if it had been
San Domingo in Hispaniola, took his departure for Flushing.  After
remaining there, in a very moody frame of mind, for several days,
expecting that the States would, at least, send a committee to wait upon
him and receive his farewells, he took leave of them by letter.  "God
send me shortly a wind to blow me from them all," he exclaimed--a prayer
which was soon granted--and before the end of the year he was safely
landed in England.  "These legs of mine," said he, clapping his hands
upon them as he sat in his chamber at Margate, "shall never go again into
Holland.  Let the States get others to serve their mercenary turn, for me
they shall not have."  Upon giving up the government, he caused a medal
to be struck in his own honour.  The device was a flock of sheep watched
by an English mastiff.  Two mottoes--"non gregem aed ingratos," and
"invitus desero"--expressed his opinion of Dutch ingratitude and his own
fidelity.  The Hollanders, on their part, struck several medals to
commemorate the same event, some of which were not destitute of
invention.  Upon one of them, for instance, was represented an ape
smothering her young ones to death in her embrace, with the device,
"Libertas ne its chara ut simiae catuli;" while upon the reverse was a
man avoiding smoke and falling into the fire, with the inscription,
"Fugiens fumum, incidit in ignem."

Leicester found the usual sunshine at Greenwich.  All the efforts of
Norris, Wilkes, and Buckhurst, had been insufficient to raise even a
doubt in Elizabeth's mind as to the wisdom and integrity by which his
administration of the Provinces had been characterised from beginning to
end.  Those who had appealed from his hatred to the justice of their
sovereign, had met with disgrace and chastisement.  But for the great
Earl; the Queen's favour was a rock of adamant.  At a private interview
he threw himself at her feet, and with tears and sobs implored her not to
receive him in disgrace whom she had sent forth in honour.  His
blandishments prevailed, as they had always done.  Instead, therefore,
of appearing before the council, kneeling, to answer such inquiries as
ought surely to have been instituted, he took his seat boldly among his
colleagues, replying haughtily to all murmurs by a reference to her
Majesty's secret instructions.

The unhappy English soldiers, who had gone forth under his banner in
midsummer, had been returning, as they best might, in winter, starving,
half-naked wretches, to beg a morsel of bread at the gates of Greenwich
palace, and to be driven away as vagabonds, with threats of the stock.
This was not the fault of the Earl, for he had fed them with his own
generous hand in the Netherlands, week after week, when no money for
their necessities could be obtained from the paymasters.  Two thousand
pounds had been sent by Elizabeth to her soldiers when sixty-four
thousand pounds arrearage were due, and no language could exaggerate the
misery to which these outcasts, according to eye-witnesses of their own
nation, were reduced.

Lord Willoughby was appointed to the command, of what remained of these
unfortunate troops, upon--the Earl's departure.  The sovereignty of the
Netherlands remained undisputed with the States.  Leicester resigned his,
commission by an instrument dated 17/27 December, which, however, never
reached the Netherlands till April of the following year.  From that time
forth the government of the republic maintained the same forms which the
assembly had claimed for it in the long controversy with the governor-
general, and which have been sufficiently described.

Meantime the negotiations for a treaty, no longer secret, continued.
The Queen; infatuated as ever, still believed in the sincerity of
Farnese, while that astute personage and his master were steadily
maturing their schemes.  A matrimonial alliance was secretly projected
between the King of Scots and Philip's daughter, the Infants Isabella,
with the consent of the Pope and the whole college of cardinals; and
James, by the whole force of the Holy League, was to be placed upon the
throne of Elizabeth.  In the case of his death, without issue, Philip
was to succeed quietly to the crowns of England, Scotland, and Ireland.
Nothing could be simpler or more rational, and accordingly these
arrangements were the table-talk at Rome, and met with general
approbation.

Communications to this effect; coming straight from the Colonna palace,
were thought sufficiently circumstantial to be transmitted to the English
government.  Maurice of Nassau wrote with his own hand to Walsingham,
professing a warm attachment to the cause in which Holland and England
were united, and perfect personal devotion to the English Queen.

His language, was not that of a youth, who, according to Leicester's
repeated insinuations, was leagued with the most distinguished soldiers
and statesmen of the Netherlands to sell their country to Spain.

But Elizabeth was not to be convinced.  She thought it extremely probable
that the Provinces would be invaded, and doubtless felt some anxiety for
England.  It was unfortunate that the possession of Sluys had given
Alexander such a point of vantage; and there was moreover, a fear that he
might take possession of Ostend.  She had, therefore, already recommended
that her own troops should be removed from that city, that its walls
should be razed; its marine bulwarks destroyed, and that the ocean.
should be let in to swallow the devoted city forever--the inhabitants
having been previously allowed to take their departure.  For it was
assumed by her Majesty that to attempt resistance would be idle, and that
Ostend could never stand a siege.

The advice was not taken; and before the end of her reign Elizabeth was
destined to see this indefensible city--only fit, in her judgment, to be
abandoned to the waves--become memorable; throughout all time, for the
longest; and, in many respects, the most remarkable siege which modern
history has recorded, the famous leaguer, in which the first European
captains of the coming age were to take their lessons, year after year,
in the school of the great Dutch soldier, who was now but a "solemn, sly
youth," just turned of twenty.

The only military achievement which characterized the close of the year,
to the great satisfaction of the Provinces and the annoyance of Parma,
was the surprise of the city of Bonn.  The indefatigable Martin Schenk--
in fulfilment of his great contract with the States-General, by which the
war on the Rhine had been farmed out to him on such profitable terms:--
had led his mercenaries against this important town.  He had found one of
its gates somewhat insecurely guarded, placed a mortar under it at night,
and occupied a neighbouring pig-stye with a number of his men, who by
chasing, maltreating, and slaughtering the swine, had raised an unearthly
din, sufficient to drown the martial operations at the gate.  In brief,
the place was easily mastered, and taken possession of by Martin, in the
name of the deposed elector, Gebhard Truchsess--the first stroke of good
fortune which had for a long time befallen that melancholy prelate.

The administration of Leicester has been so minutely pictured, that it
would be superfluous to indulge in many concluding reflections.  His acts
and words have been made to speak for themselves.  His career in the
country has been described with much detail, because the period was a
great epoch of transition.  The republic of the Netherlands, during those
years, acquired consistency and permanent form.  It seemed possible, on
the Earl's first advent, that the Provinces might become part and parcel
of the English realm.  Whether such a consummation would have been
desirable or not, is a fruitless enquiry.  But it is certain that the
selection of such a man as Leicester made that result impossible.
Doubtless there were many errors committed by all parties.  The Queen
was supposed by the Netherlands to be secretly desirous of accepting the
sovereignty of the Provinces, provided she were made sure, by the Earl's
experience, that they were competent to protect themselves.  But this
suspicion was unfounded.  The result of every investigation showed the
country so full of resources, of wealth, and of military and naval
capabilities, that, united with England, it would have been a source of
great revenue and power, not a burthen and an expense.  Yet, when
convinced of such facts, by the statistics which were liberally laid
before her by her confidential agents, she never manifested, either in
public or private, any intention of accepting the sovereignty.  This
being her avowed determination, it was an error on the part of the
States, before becoming thoroughly acquainted with the man's character,
to confer upon Leicester the almost boundless authority which they
granted on, his first arrival.  It was a still graver mistake, on the
part of Elizabeth, to give way to such explosions of fury, both against
the governor and the States, when informed of the offer and acceptance of
that authority.  The Earl, elevated by the adulation of others, and by
his own vanity, into an almost sovereign attitude, saw himself chastised
before the world, like an aspiring lackey, by her in whose favour he
had felt most secure.  He found, himself, in an instant, humbled and
ridiculous.  Between himself and the Queen it was, something of a lovers'
quarrel, and he soon found balsam in the hand that smote him.  But though
reinstated in authority, he was never again the object of reverence in
the land he was attempting to rule.  As he came to know the Netherlanders
better, he recognized the great capacity which their statesmen concealed
under a plain and sometimes a plebeian exterior, and the splendid grandee
hated, where at first he had only despised.  The Netherlanders, too, who
had been used to look up almost with worship to a plain man of kindly
manners, in felt hat and bargeman's woollen jacket, whom they called
"Father William," did not appreciate, as they ought, the magnificence of
the stranger who had been sent to govern them.  The Earl was handsome,
quick-witted, brave; but he was, neither wise in council nor capable in
the field.  He was intolerably arrogant, passionate, and revengeful.
He hated easily, and he hated for life.  It was soon obvious that no
cordiality of feeling or of action could exist between him and the plain,
stubborn Hollanders.  He had the fatal characteristic of loving only the
persons who flattered him.  With much perception of character, sense of
humour, and appreciation of intellect, he recognized the power of the
leading men in the nation, and sought to gain them.  So long as he hoped
success, he was loud in their praises.  They were all wise, substantial,
well-languaged, big fellows, such as were not to be found in England or
anywhere else.  When they refused to be made his tools, they became
tinkers, boors, devils, and atheists.  He covered them with curses and
devoted them to the gibbet.  He began by warmly commending Buys and
Barneveld, Hohenlo and Maurice, and endowing them with every virtue.
Before he left the country he had accused them of every crime, and would
cheerfully, if he could, have taken the life of every one of them.  And
it was quite the same with nearly every Englishman who served with or
under him.  Wilkes and Buckhurst, however much the objects of his
previous esteem; so soon as they ventured to censure or even to criticise
his proceedings, were at once devoted to perdition.  Yet, after minute
examination of the record, public and private, neither Wilkes nor
Buckhurst can be found guilty of treachery or animosity towards him, but
are proved to have been governed, in all their conduct, by a strong sense
of duty to their sovereign, the Netherlands, and Leicester himself.

To Sir John Norris, it must be allowed, that he was never fickle,
for he had always entertained for that distinguished general an honest,
unswerving, and infinite hatred, which was not susceptible of increase
or diminution by any act or word.  Pelham, too, whose days were numbered,
and who was dying bankrupt and broken-hearted, at the close of the,
Earl's administration, had always been regarded by him with tenderness
and affection.  But Pelham had never thwarted him, had exposed his life
for him, and was always proud of being his faithful, unquestioning,
humble adherent.  With perhaps this single exception, Leicester found
himself at the end of his second term in the Provinces, without a single
friend and with few respectable partisans.  Subordinate mischievous
intriguers like Deventer, Junius, and Otheman, were his chief advisers
and the instruments of his schemes.

With such qualifications it was hardly possible--even if the current of
affairs had been flowing smoothly--that he should prove a successful
governor of the new republic.  But when the numerous errors and
adventitious circumstances are considered--for some of which he was
responsible, while of others he was the victim--it must be esteemed
fortunate that no great catastrophe occurred.  His immoderate elevation;
his sudden degradation, his controversy in regard to the sovereignty, his
abrupt departure for England, his protracted absence, his mistimed
return, the secret instructions for his second administration, the
obstinate parsimony and persistent ill-temper of the Queen--who, from the
beginning to the end of the Earl's government, never addressed a kindly
word to the Netherlanders, but was ever censuring and brow beating them
in public state-papers and private epistles--the treason of York and
Stanley, above all, the disastrous and concealed negotiations with Parma,
and the desperate attempts upon Amsterdam and Leyden--all placed him in a
most unfortunate position from first to last.  But he was not competent
for his post under any circumstances.  He was not the statesman to deal
in policy with Buys, Barneveld, Ortel, Sainte Aldegonde; nor the soldier
to measure himself against Alexander Farnese.  His administration was a
failure; and although he repeatedly hazarded his life, and poured out his
wealth in their behalf with an almost unequalled liberality, he could
never gain the hearts of the Netherlanders.  English valour, English
intelligence, English truthfulness, English generosity, were endearing
England more and more to Holland.  The statesmen of both countries were
brought into closest union, and learned to appreciate and to respect
each other, while they recognized that the fate of their respective
commonwealths was indissolubly united.  But it was to the efforts of
Walsingham, Drake, Raleigh, Wilkes, Buckburst, Norris, Willoughby,
Williams, Vere, Russell, and the brave men who fought under their banners
or their counsels, on every battle-field, and in every beleaguered town
in the Netherlands, and to the universal spirit and sagacity of the
English nation, in this grand crisis of its fate, that these fortunate
results were owing; not to the Earl of Leicester, nor--during the term of
his administration--to Queen Elizabeth herself.

In brief, the proper sphere of this remarkable personage, and the one
in which he passed the greater portion of his existence, was that of a
magnificent court favourite, the spoiled darling, from youth to his
death-bed, of the great English Queen; whether to the advantage or not of
his country and the true interests of his sovereign, there can hardly be
at this day any difference of opinion.



ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:

Act of Uniformity required Papists to assist
As lieve see the Spanish as the Calvinistic inquisition
Elizabeth (had not) the faintest idea of religious freedom
God, whose cause it was, would be pleased to give good weather
Heretics to the English Church were persecuted
Look for a sharp war, or a miserable peace
Loving only the persons who flattered him
Not many more than two hundred Catholics were executed
Only citadel against a tyrant and a conqueror was distrust
Stake or gallows (for) heretics to transubstantiation
States were justified in their almost unlimited distrust
Undue anxiety for impartiality
Wealthy Papists could obtain immunity by an enormous fine





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