upon, and who had since that period been most influential in procuring the present triumph of the English policy.  Through his exertions the Province of Holland had been induced at an early moment to furnish the most ample instructions to the commissioners for the satisfaction of Queen Elizabeth in the great matter of the mortgages.  “Judge if this Paul Buys has done his work well,” said a French agent in the Netherlands, who, despite the infamous conduct of his government towards the Provinces, was doing his best to frustrate the subsequent negotiation with England, “and whether or no he has Holland under his thumb.”  The same individual had conceived hopes from Falck of Zeeland.  That Province, in which lay the great bone of contention between the Queen and the States—­the important town of Flushing—­was much slower than Holland to agree to the English policy.  It is to be feared that Falck was not the most ingenuous and disinterested politician that could be found even in an age not distinguished for frankness or purity; for even while setting forth upon the mission to Elizabeth, he was still clingihg, or affecting to cling, to the wretched delusion of French assistance.  “I regret infinitely,” said Falck to the French agent just mentioned, “that I am employed in this affair, and that it is necessary in our present straits to have recourse to England.  There is—­so to speak—­not a person in our Province that is inclined that way, all recognizing very well that France is much more salutary for us, besides that we all bear her a certain affection.  Indeed, if I were assured that the King still felt any goodwill towards us, I would so manage matters that neither the Queen of England, nor any other prince whatever except his most Christian-Majesty should take a bite at this country, at least at this Province, and with that view, while waiting for news from France, I will keep things in suspense, and spin them out as long as it is possible to do.”

The news from France happened soon to be very conclusive, and it then became difficult even for Falek to believe—­after intelligence received of the accord between Henry iii. and the Guises—­that his Christian Majesty, would be inclined for a bite at the Netherlands.  This duplicity on the part of so leading a personage furnishes a key to much of the apparent dilatoriness on the part of the English government:  It has been seen that Elizabeth, up to the last moment, could not fairly comprehend the ineffable meanness of the French monarch.  She told Ortel that she saw no reason to believe in that great Catholic conspiracy against herself and against all Protestantism which was so soon to be made public by the King’s edict of July, promulgated at the very instant of the arrival in England of the Netherland envoys.  Then that dread fiat had gone forth, the most determined favourer of the French alliance could no longer admit its possibility, and Falck became the more open to that peculiar line of argument which Leicester had suggested with regard to one of the other deputies.  “I will do my best,” wrote Walsingham, “to procure that Paul Buys and Falck shall receive underhand some reward.”