spring and summer, that they were most detrimental to Leicester’s success, and that they were kept—­so far as it was possible—­a profound secret from him, from Walsingham, and from the States-General.  Nothing was told them except what their own astuteness had discovered beforehand; and the game of the counsellors—­so far as their attitude towards Leicester and Walsingham was concerned—­seems both disingenuous and impolitic.

Parma, it was to be feared, was more than a match for the English governor-general in the field; and it was certainly hopeless for poor old Comptroller Croft, even though backed by the sagacious Burghley, to accomplish so great an amount of dissimulation in a year as the Spanish cabinet, without effort, could compass in a week.  Nor were they attempting to do so.  It is probable that England was acting towards Philip in much better faith than he deserved, or than Parma believed; but it is hardly to be wondered at that Leicester should think himself injured by being kept perpetually in the dark.

Elizabeth was very impatient at not receiving direct letters from Parma, and her anxiety on the subject explains much of her caprice during the quarrel about the governor-generalahip.  Many persons in the Netherlands thought those violent scenes a farce, and a farce that had been arranged with Leicester beforehand.  In this they were mistaken; for an examination of the secret correspondence of the period reveals the motives—­which to contemporaries were hidden—­of many strange transactions.  The Queen was, no doubt, extremely anxious, and with cause, at the tempest slowly gathering over her head; but the more the dangers thickened, the more was her own official language to those in high places befitting the sovereign of England.

She expressed her surprise to Farnese that he had not written to her on the subject of the Grafigni and Bodman affair.  The first, she said, was justified in all which he had narrated, save in his assertion that she had sent him.  The other had not obtained audience, because he had not come provided with any credentials, direct or indirect.  Having now understood from Andrea de Loo and the Seigneur de Champagny that Parma had the power to conclude a peace, which he seemed very much to desire, she observed that it was not necessary for him to be so chary in explaining the basis of the proposed negotiations.  It was better to enter into a straightforward path, than by ambiguous words to spin out to great length matters which princes should at once conclude.

“Do not suppose,” said the Queen, “that I am seeking what belongs to others.  God forbid.  I seek only that which is mine own.  But be sure that I will take good heed of the sword which threatens me with destruction, nor think that I am so craven-spirited as to endure a wrong, or to place myself at the mercy of my enemy.  Every week I see advertisements and letters from Spain that this year shall witness the downfall of England; for the Spaniards—­like