Ostend to Ghent—­an hour’s journey or so in these modern times.—­The English envoys, in the sixteenth century, found it a more formidable undertaking.  They were many hours traversing the four miles to Oudenburg, their first halting-place; for the waters were out, there having been a great breach of the sea-dyke of Ostend, a disaster threatening destruction to town and country.  At Oudenburg, a “small and wretched hole,” as Garnier had described it to be, there was, however, a garrison of three thousand Spanish soldiers, under the Marquis de Renti.  From these a convoy of fifty troopers was appointed to protect the English travellers to Bruges.  Here they arrived at three o’clock, were met outside the gates by the famous General La Motte, and by him escorted to their lodgings in the “English house,” and afterwards handsomely entertained at supper in his own quarters.

The General’s wife; Madame de la Motte, was, according to Cecil, “a fair gentlewoman of discreet and modest behaviour, and yet not unwilling sometimes to hear herself speak;” so that in her society, and in that of her sister—­“a nun of the order of the Mounts, but who, like the rest of the sisterhood, wore an ordinary dress in the evening, and might leave the convent if asked in marriage”—­the supper passed off very agreeably.

In the evening Cecil found that his father had formerly occupied the same bedroom of the English hotel in which he was then lodged; for he found that Lord Burghley had scrawled his name in the chimney-corner—­a fact which was highly gratifying to the son.

The next morning, at seven o’clock, the travellers set forth for Ghent.  The journey was a miserable one.  It was as cold and gloomy weather as even a Flemish month of March could furnish.  A drizzling rain was falling all day long, the lanes were foul and miry, the frequent thickets which overhung their path were swarming with the freebooters of Zeeland, who were “ever at hand,” says Cecil, “to have picked our purses, but that they descried our convoy, and so saved themselves in the woods.”  Sitting on horseback ten hours without alighting, under such circumstances as these, was not luxurious for a fragile little gentleman like Queen Elizabeth’s “pigmy;” especially as Dr. Dale and himself had only half a red herring between them for luncheon, and supped afterwards upon an orange.  The envoy protested that when they could get a couple of eggs a piece, while travelling in Flanders, “they thought they fared like princes.”

Nevertheless Cecil and himself fought it out manfully, and when they reached Ghent, at five in the evening, they were met by their acquaintance Garnier, and escorted to their lodgings.  Here they were waited upon by President Richardot, “a tall gentleman,” on behalf of the Duke of Parma, and then left to their much-needed repose.

Nothing could be more forlorn than the country of the obedient Netherlands, through which their day’s journey had led them.  Desolation had been the reward of obedience.  “The misery of the inhabitants,” said Cecil, “is incredible, both without the town, where all things are wasted, houses spoiled, and grounds unlaboured, and also, even in these great cities, where they are for the most part poor beggars even in the fairest houses.”