painful anxiety, and had formed the subject of repeated remonstrances on the part of the ‘States’ to Leicester and to the Queen.  The deputies were hardly, prepared therefore to defend their own people against dealing privately with the King of Spain.  The only man suspected of such practices was Leicester’s own favourite and financier, Jacques Ringault, whom the Earl had persisted in employing against the angry remonstrances of the States, who believed him to be a Spanish spy; and the man was now in prison, and threatened with capital punishment.

To suppose that Buys or Barneveld, Roorda, Meetkerk, or any other leading statesman in the Netherlands, was contemplating a private arrangement with Philip II., was as ludicrous a conception as to imagine Walsingham a pensioner of the Pope, or Cecil in league with the Duke of Guise.  The end and aim of the States’ party was war.  In war they not only saw the safety of the reformed religion, but the only means of maintaining the commercial prosperity of the commonwealth.  The whole correspondence of the times shows that no politician in the country dreamed of peace, either by public or secret negotiation.  On the other hand—­as will be made still clearer than ever—­the Queen was longing for peace, and was treating for peace at that moment through private agents, quite without the knowledge of the States, and in spite of her indignant disavowals in her speech to the envoys.

Yet if Elizabeth could have had the privilege of entering—­as we are about to do—­into the private cabinet of that excellent King of Spain, with whom, she had once been such good friends, who had even sought her hand in marriage, and with whom she saw no reason whatever why she should not live at peace, she might have modified her expressions an this subject.  Certainly, if she could have looked through the piles of papers—­as we intend to do—­which lay upon that library-table, far beyond the seas and mountains, she would have perceived some objections to the scheme of living at peace with that diligent letter-writer.

Perhaps, had she known how the subtle Farnese was about to express himself concerning the fast-approaching execution of Mary, and the as inevitably impending destruction of “that Englishwoman” through the schemes of his master and himself, she would have paid less heed to the sentiments couched in most exquisite Italian which Alexander was at the same time whispering in her ear, and would have taken less offence at the blunt language of the States-General.

Nevertheless, for the present, Elizabeth would give no better answer than the hot-tempered one which had already somewhat discomfited the deputies.