“I did acquaint Sir Christopher Hatton,” wrote Walsingham to Leicester, “with the letter which Ste. Aldegonde wrote to your Lordship, which, carrying a true picture of an afflicted mind, cannot but move an honest heart, weighing the rare parts the gentleman is endowed withal, to pity his distressed estate, and, to procure him relief and comfort, which Mr. Vice-Chamberlain (Hatton) bath promised on his part to perform.  I thought good to send Ste. Aldegonde’s letter unto the Lord Treasurer (Burghley), who heretofore has carried a hard conceit of the gentleman, hoping that the view of his letter will breed some remorse towards him.  I have also prayed his Lordship, if he see cause, to acquaint her Majesty with the said letter.”

But his high public career was closed.  He lived down calumny; and put his enemies to shame, but the fatal error which he had committed, in taking the side of Spain rather than of England at so momentous a crisis, could never be repaired.  He regained the good opinion of the most virtuous and eminent personages in Europe, but in the noon of life he voluntarily withdrew from public affairs.  The circumstances just detailed had made him impossible as a political leader, and it was equally impossible for him to play a secondary part.  He occasionally consented to be employed in special diplomatic missions, but the serious avocations of his life now became theological and literary.  He sought—­in his own words—­to penetrate himself still more deeply than ever with the spirit of the reformation, and to imbue the minds of the young with that deep love for the reformed religion which had been the guiding thought of his own career.  He often spoke with a sigh of his compulsory exile from the field where he had been so conspicuous all his lifetime; he bitterly lamented the vanished dream of the great national union between Belgium and Holland, which had flattered his youth and his manhood; and he sometimes alluded with bitterness to the calumny which had crippled him of his usefulness.  He might have played a distinguished part in that powerful commonwealth which was so steadily and splendidly arising out of the lagunes of Zeeland and Holland, but destiny and calumny and his own error had decided otherwise.

“From the depth of my exile—­” he said, “for I am resolved to retire, I know not where, into Germany, perhaps into Sarmatia, I shall look from afar upon the calamities of my country.  That which to me is most mournful is no longer to be able to assist my fatherland by my counsels and my actions.”  He did not go into exile, but remained chiefly at his mansion of Zoubourg, occupied with agriculture and with profound study.  Many noble works conspicuous in the literature of the epoch—­were the results of his learned leisure; and the name of Marnix of Sainte Aldegonde will be always as dear to the lovers of science and letters as to the believers in civil and religious liberty.  At the request