On that day the Duke was sitting in his tent, brooding, as he was apt to do, over the unjust accusations which had been heaped upon him in regard to the failure of the Armada, when a stranger was announced.  His name, he said, was Giacomo Morone, and he was the bearer of a letter from Sir Horace Pallavicini, a Genoese gentleman long established in London; and known to be on confidential terms with the English government.  Alexander took the letter, and glancing at the bottom of the last page, saw that it was not signed.

“How dare you bring me a dispatch without a signature?” he exclaimed.  The messenger, who was himself a Genoese, assured the Duke that the letter was most certainly written by Pallavicini—­who had himself placed it, sealed, in his hands—­and that he had supposed it signed, although he had of course, not seen the inside.

Alexander began to read the note, which was not a very long one, and his brow instantly darkened.  He read a line or two more, when, with an exclamation of fury, he drew his dagger, and, seizing the astonished Genoese by the throat, was about to strike him dead.  Suddenly mastering his rage, however, by a strong effort, and remembering that the man might be a useful witness; he flung Morone from him.

“If I had Pallavicini here,” he said, “I would treat, him as I have just refrained from using you.  And if I had any suspicion that you were aware of the contents of this letter, I would send you this instant to be hanged.”

The unlucky despatch-bearer protested his innocence of all complicity with Pallavicini, and his ignorance of the tenor of the communication by which the Duke’s wrath had been so much excited.  He was then searched and cross-examined most carefully by Richardot and other counsellors, and his innocence being made apparent-he was ultimately discharged.

The letter of Pallavicini was simply an attempt to sound Farnese as to his sentiments in regard to a secret scheme, which could afterwards be arranged in form, and according, to which he was to assume the sovereignty of the Netherlands himself, to the exclusion of his King, to guarantee to England the possession of the cautionary towns, until her advances to the States should be refunded, and to receive the support and perpetual alliance of the Queen in his new and rebellious position.

Here was additional evidence, if any were wanting, of the universal belief in his disloyalty; and Alexander, faithful, if man ever were to his master—­was cut to the heart, and irritated almost to madness, by such insolent propositions.  There is neither proof nor probability that the Queen’s government was implicated in this intrigue of Pallavicini, who appears to have been inspired by the ambition of achieving a bit of Machiavellian policy, quite on his own account.  Nothing came of the proposition, and the Duke; having transmitted to the King a minute narrative of, the affair, together with indignant protestations of the fidelity, which all the world seemed determined to dispute, received most affectionate replies from that monarch, breathing nothing but unbounded confidence in his nephew’s innocence and devotion.