Moreover; the English troops were, as we have seen, mere shoeless, shivering, starving vagabonds.  The Earl had generously advanced very large sums of money from his own pocket to relieve their necessity.  The States, on the other hand, had voluntarily increased the monthly contribution of 200,000 florins, to which their contract with Elizabeth obliged them, and were more disposed than ever they had been since the death of Orange to proceed vigorously and harmoniously against the common enemy of Christendom.  Under such circumstances it may well be imagined that there was cause on Leicester’s part for deep mortification at the tragical turn which the Queen’s temper seemed to be taking.

“I know not,” he said, “how her Majesty doth mean to dispose of me.  It hath grieved me more than I can express that for faithful and good service she should so deeply conceive against me.  God knows with what mind I have served her Highness, and perhaps some others might have failed.  Yet she is neither tied one jot by covenant or promise by me in any way, nor at one groat the more charges, but myself two or three thousand pounds sterling more than now is like to be well spent.  I will desire no partial speech in my favour.  If my doings be ill for her Majesty and the realm, let me feel the smart of it.  The cause is now well forward; let not her majesty suffer it to quail.  If you will have it proceed to good effect, send away Sir William Pelham with all the haste you can.  I mean not to complain, but with so weighty a cause as this is, few men have been so weakly assisted.  Her Majesty hath far better choice for my place, and with any that may succeed me let Sir William Pelham be first that may come.  I speak from my soul for her Majesty’s service.  I am for myself upon an hour’s warning to obey her good pleasure.”

Thus far the Earl had maintained his dignity.  He had yielded to the solicitations of the States, and had thereby exceeded his commission, and gratified his ambition, but he had in no wise forfeited his self-respect.  But—­so soon as the first unquestionable intelligence of the passion to which the Queen had given way at his misdoings reached him—­he began to whimper, The straightforward tone which Davison had adopted in his interviews with Elizabeth, and the firmness with which he had defended the cause of his absent friend, at a moment when he had plunged himself into disgrace, was worthy of applause.  He deserved at least a word of honest thanks.

Ignoble however was the demeanor of the Earl towards the man—­for whom he had but recently been unable to invent eulogies sufficiently warm—­ so soon as he conceived the possibility of sacrificing his friend as the scape-goat for his own fault.  An honest schoolboy would have scorned to leave thus in the lurch a comrade who had been fighting his battles so honestly.