Walsingham and Leicester, however, carried the day.  Leicester was appointed to be general, and Philip Sidney was sent to be governor of Flushing, at about the time when Drake was preparing for what is known as the Carthagena Expedition.  The direct intervention of the English government in the Netherlands, where hitherto there had been no state action, though many Englishmen were fighting as volunteers, was tantamount to a declaration of war with Spain.  But the haggling over terms had made it too late to save Antwerp.

Leicester had definite orders to do nothing contradictory to the queen’s explicit refusal of both sovereignty and protectorate.  But he was satisfied that a position of supreme authority was necessary; and he had hardly reached his destination when he was formally offered, and accepted, the title of Governor-General (January 1586).  The proposal had the full support of young Maurice of Nassau, second son of William the Silent, and destined to succeed his father in the character of Liberator.

Angry as Elizabeth was, she did not withdraw Leicester.  In fact, Parma was privately negotiating with her; negotiations in which Burghley and Hatton took part, but which did not wholly escape Walsingham.  Parma had no intention of being bound by these negotiations; they were pure dissimulation on his part; and, possibly, but not probably, on Elizabeth’s.  Parma, in fact, was nervous as to possible French action.  But their practical effect was to paralyse Leicester, and their object to facilitate the invasion of England.

II.—­Leicester and the Armada

In the spring, Parma was actively prosecuting the war.  He attacked Grave, which was valorously relieved by Martin Schenk and Sir John Norris; but soon after he took it, to Leicester’s surprise and disgust.  The capture of Axed by Maurice of Nassau and Sidney served as some balance.  Presently Leicester laid siege to Zutphen; but the place was relieved, in spite of the memorable fight of Warnsfeld, where less than six hundred English attacked and drove off a force of six times their number, for reinforcements compelled their retreat.  This was the famous battle of Zutphen, where Philip Sidney fell.

But Elizabeth persisted in keeping Leicester in a false position which laid him open to suspicion; while his own conduct kept him on ill terms with the Estates, and the queen’s parsimony crippled his activities.  In effect, there was soon a strong opposition to Leicester.  He was at odds also with stout Sir John Norris, from which evil was to come.

Now, the discovery of Babington’s plot made Leicester eager to go back to England, since he was set upon ending the life of Mary Stuart.  At the close of November he took ship from Flushing.  But while Norris was left in nominal command, his commission was not properly made out; and the important town of Deventer was left under the papist Sir William Stanley, with the adventurer Rowland York at Zutphen,