“What phlegmatical reasons soever were made you,” wrote the Queen, who but three weeks before had been so gentle and affectionate to her, ambassador, “how happeneth it that you will not remember, that when a man hath faulted and committed by abettors thereto, neither the one nor the other will willingly make their own retreat.  Jesus! what availeth wit, when it fails the owner at greatest need?  Do that you are bidden, and leave your considerations for your own affairs.  For in some things you had clear commandment, which you did not, and in others none, and did.  We princes be wary enough of our bargains.  Think you I will be bound by your own speech to make no peace for mine own matters without their consent?  It is enough that I injure not their country nor themselves in making peace for them without their consent.  I am assured of your dutiful thoughts, but I am utterly at squares with this childish dealing.”

Blasted by this thunderbolt falling upon his head out of serenest sky, the sad.  Sir.  Thomas remained, for a time, in a state of political annihilation.  ‘Sweet Robin’ meanwhile, though stunned, was unscathed—­ thanks to the convenient conductor at his side.  For, in Elizabeth’s court, mediocrity was not always golden, nor was it usually the loftiest mountains that the lightnings smote.  The Earl was deceived by his royal mistress, kept in the dark as to important transactions, left to provide for his famishing’ soldiers as he best might; but the, Queen at that moment, though angry, was not disposed, to trample upon him.  Now that his heart was known to be broken, and his sole object in life to be retirement to remote regions—­India or elsewhere—­there to languish out the brief remainder of his days in prayers for Elizabeth’s happiness, Elizabeth was not inclined very bitterly to upbraid him.  She had too recently been employing herself in binding up his broken heart, and pouring balm into the “scorpion’s sting,” to be willing so soon to deprive him of those alleviations.

Her tone—­was however no longer benignant, and her directions were extremely peremptory.  On the 1st of April she had congratulated Leicester, Heneage, the States, and all the world, that her secret commands had been staid, and that the ruin which would have followed, had, those decrees been executed according to her first violent wish, was fortunately averted.  Heneage was even censured, not by herself, but by courtiers in her confidence, and with her concurrence, for being over hasty in going before the state-council, as he had done, with her messages and commands.  On the 26th of April she expressed astonishment that Heneage had dared to be so dilatory, and that the title of governor had not been laid down by Leicester “out of hand.”  She marvelled greatly, and found it very strange that “ministers in matters of moment should presume to do things of their own head without direction.”  She accordingly gave orders that there should be no more dallying, but that the Earl should immediately hold a conference with the state-council in order to arrange a modification in his commission.  It was her pleasure that he should retain all the authority granted to him by the States, but as already intimated by her, that he should abandon the title of “absolute governor,” and retain only that of her lieutenant-general.