As to the peace-negotiations—­which, however cunningly managed, could not remain entirely concealed—­the Earl declared them to be as idle as they were disingenuous.  “I will boldly pronounce that all the peace you can make in the world, leaving these countries,” said he to Burghley, “will never prove other than a fair spring for a few days, to be all over blasted with a hard storm after.”  Two days later her Majesty’s comforting letters arrived, and the Earl began to raise his drooping head.  Heneage, too, was much relieved, but he was, at the same time, not a little perplexed.  It was not so easy to undo all the mischief created by the Queen’s petulance.  The “scorpion’s sting”—­as her Majesty expressed herself—­might be balsamed, but the poison had spread far beyond the original wound.

“The letters just brought in,” wrote Heneage to Burghley, “have well relieved a most noble and sufficient servant, but I fear they will not restore the much-repaired wrecks of these far-decayed noble countries into the same state I found them in.  A loose, disordered, and unknit state needs no shaking, but propping.  A subtle and fearful kind of people—­should not be made more distrustful, but assured.”  He then expressed annoyance at the fault already found with him, and surely if ever man had cause to complain of reproof administered him, in quick succession; for not obeying contradictory directions following upon each other as quickly, that man was Sir Thomas Heneage.  He had been, as he thought, over cautious in administering the rebuke to the Earl’s arrogance, which he had been expressly sent over to administer but scarcely had he accomplished his task, with as much delicacy as he could devise, when he found himself censured;—­not for dilatoriness, but for haste.  “Fault I perceive,” said he to Burghley, “is found in me, not by your Lordship, but by some other, that I did not stay proceeding if I found the public cause might take hurt.  It is true I had good warrant for the manner, the, place, and the persons, but, for the matter none, for done it must be.  Her Majesty’s offence must be declared.  Yet if I did not all I possibly could to uphold the cause, and to keep the tottering cause upon the wheels, I deserve no thanks, but reproof.”

Certainly, when the blasts of royal rage are remembered, by which the envoy had been, as it were, blown out of England into Holland, it is astonishing to find his actions censured for undue precipitancy.  But it was not the, first, nor was it likely to be the last time, for comparatively subordinate agents in Elizabeth’s government to be, distressed by, contradictory commands, when the sovereign did not know or did not chose to make known, her own mind on important occasions.  “Well, my Lord,” said plaintive Sir Thomas, “wiser men may serve more pleasingly and happily, but never shall any serve her Majesty more, faithfully and heartily.  And so I cannot be persuaded her Majesty thinketh; for from herself I find nothing but most sweet and—­gracious, favour, though by others’ censures I may gather otherwise of her judgment; which I confess, doth cumber me.”