Sagacious and resolute Princess as she was, she showed something of feminine caprice upon this grave occasion.  Not Davison alone, but her most confidential ministers and favourites at home, were perplexed and provoked by her misplaced political coquetries.  But while the alternation of her hot and cold fits drove her most devoted courtiers out of patience, there was one symptom that remained invariable throughout all her paroxysms, the rigidity with which her hand was locked.  Walsingham, stealthy enough when an advantage was to be gained by subtlety, was manful and determined in his dealings with his friends; and he had more than once been offended with Elizabeth’s want of frankness in these transactions.

“I find you grieved, and not without cause,” he wrote to Davison, “in respect to the over thwart proceedings as well there as here.  The disorders in those countries would be easily redressed if we could take a thoroughly resolute course here—­a matter that men may rather pray for than hope for.  It is very doubtful whether the action now in hand will be accompanied by very hard success, unless they of the country there may be drawn to bear the greatest part of the burden of the wars.”

And now the great favourite of all had received the appointment which he coveted.  The Earl of Leicester was to be Commander-in-Chief of her Majesty’s forces in the Netherlands, and representative of her authority in those countries, whatever that office might prove to be.  The nature of his post was anomalous from the beginning.  It was environed with difficulties, not the least irritating of which proceeded from the captious spirit of the Queen.  The Earl was to proceed in great pomp to Holland, but the pomp was to be prepared mainly at his own expense.  Besides the auxiliary forces that had been shipped during the latter period of the year, Leicester was raising a force of lancers, from four to eight hundred in number; but to pay for that levy he was forced to mortgage his own property, while the Queen not only refused to advance ready money, but declined endorsing his bills.

It must be confessed that the Earl’s courtship of Elizabeth was anything at that moment but a gentle dalliance.  In those thorny regions of finance were no beds of asphodel or amaranthine bowers.  There was no talk but of troopers, saltpetre, and sulphur, of books of assurance, and bills of exchange; and the aspect of Elizabeth, when the budget was under discussion, must effectually have neutralized for the time any very tender sentiment.  The sharpness with which she clipped Leicester’s authority, when authority was indispensable to his dignity, and the heavy demands upon his resources that were the result of her avarice, were obstacles more than enough to the calm fruition of his triumphs.  He had succeeded, in appearance at least, in the great object of his ambition, this appointment to the Netherlands; but the appointment was no sinecure, and least of all a promising pecuniary speculation.  Elizabeth had told the envoys, with reason, that she was not sending forth that man—­whom she loved as a brother—­in order that he might make himself rich.  On the contrary, the Earl seemed likely to make himself comparatively poor before he got to the Provinces, while his political power, at the moment, did not seem of more hopeful growth.