And no doubt the merchant believed all that was told him, and—­what was worse—­that he fully impressed his own convictions upon her Majesty and Lord Burghley, to say nothing of the comptroller, who, poor man, had great facility in believing anything that came from the court of the most Catholic King:  yet it is painful to reflect, that in all these communications of Alexander and his agents, there was not one single word of truth.—­It was all false from beginning to end, as to the countermanding of the troops,—­as to the pacific intentions of the King and Duke, and as to the proposed campaign in Friesland, in case of rupture; and all the rest.  But this will be conclusively proved a little later.

Meantime the conference had been most amicable and satisfactory.  And when business was over, Champagny—­not a whit the worse for the severe jilting which he had so recently sustained from the widow De Bours, now Mrs. Aristotle Patton—­invited De Loo and Secretary Cosimo to supper.  And the three made a night of it, sitting up late, and draining such huge bumpers to the health of the Queen of England, that—­as the excellent Andrew subsequently informed Lord Burghley—­his head ached most bravely next morning.

And so, amid the din of hostile preparation not only in Cadiz and Lisbon, but in Ghent and Sluys and Antwerp, the import of which it seemed difficult to mistake, the comedy of, negotiation was still rehearsing, and the principal actors were already familiar with their respective parts.  There were the Earl of Derby, knight of the garter, and my Lord Cobham; and puzzling James Croft, and other Englishmen, actually believing that the farce was a solemn reality.  There was Alexander of Parma thoroughly aware of the contrary.  There was Andrew de Loo, more talkative, more credulous, more busy than ever, and more fully impressed with the importance of his mission, and there was the white-bearded Lord-Treasurer turning complicated paragraphs; shaking his head and waving his wand across the water, as if, by such expedients, the storm about to burst over England could, be dispersed.

The commissioners should come, if only the Duke of Parma would declare on his word of honour, that these hostile preparations with which all Christendom was ringing; were not intended against England; or if that really were the case—­if he would request his master to abandon all such schemes, and if Philip in consequence would promise on the honour of a prince, to make no hostile attempts against that country.

There would really seem an almost Arcadian simplicity in such demands, coming from so practised a statesman as the Lord-Treasurer, and from a woman of such brilliant intellect as Elizabeth unquestionably possessed.  But we read the history of 1587, not only by the light of subsequent events, but by the almost microscopic revelations of sentiments and motives, which a full perusal of the secret documents in those ancient cabinets