Such was the aspect of affairs in the Provinces after the first explosion of the Queen’s anger had become known.  Meanwhile the court-weather was very changeable in England, being sometimes serene, sometimes cloudy,—­always treacherous.

Mr. Vavasour, sent by the Earl with despatches to her Majesty and the council, had met with a sufficiently benignant reception.  She accepted the letters, which, however, owing to a bad cold with a defluxion in the eyes, she was unable at once to read; but she talked ambiguously with the messenger.  Yavasour took pains to show the immediate necessity of sending supplies, so that the armies in the Netherlands might take the field at the, earliest possible moment.  “And what,” said she, “if a peace should come in the mean time?”

“If your Majesty desireth a convenient peace,” replied Vavasour, “to take the field is the readiest way to obtain it; for as yet the King of Spain hath had no reason to fear you.  He is daily expecting that your own slackness may give your Majesty an overthrow.  Moreover, the Spaniards are soldiers, and are not to be moved by-shadows.”

But the Queen had no ears for these remonstrances, and no disposition to open her coffers.  A warrant for twenty-four thousand pounds had been signed by her at the end of the month of March, and was about to be sent, when Vavasour arrived; but it was not possible for him, although assisted by the eloquence of Walsingham and Burghley, to obtain an enlargement of the pittance.  “The storms are overblown,” said Walsingham, “but I fear your Lordship shall receive very scarce measure from hence.  You will not believe how the sparing humour doth increase upon us.”

Nor were the storms so thoroughly overblown but that there were not daily indications of returning foul weather.  Accordingly—­after a conference with Vavasour—­Burghley, and Walsingham had an interview with the Queen, in which the Lord Treasurer used bold and strong language.  He protested to her that he was bound, both by his duty to himself and his oath as her councillor, to declare that the course she was holding to Lord Leicester was most dangerous to her own honour, interest and safety.  If she intended to continue in this line of conduct, he begged to resign his office of Lord Treasurer; wishing; before God and man, to wash his bands of the shame and peril which he saw could not be avoided.  The Queen, astonished at the audacity of Burghley’s attitude and language, hardly knew whether to chide him for his presumption or to listen to his arguments.  She did both.  She taxed him with insolence in daring to address her so roundly, and then finding he was speaking even in ‘amaritudine animae’ and out of a clear conscience, she became calm again, and intimated a disposition to qualify her anger against the absent Earl.