And now, the governor—­who, in order to soothe his sovereign and comply with her vehement wishes, had so long misrepresented the state of public feeling—­not only confessed that Papists and Protestants, gentle and simple, the States and the people, throughout the republic, were all opposed to any negotiation with the enemy, but lifted up his own voice, and in earnest language expressed his opinion of the Queen’s infatuation.

“Oh, my Lord, what a treaty is this for peace,” said he to Burghley, “that we must treat, altogether disarmed and weakened, and the King having made his forces stronger than ever he had known in these parts, besides what is coming out, of Spain, and yet we will presume of good conditions.  It grieveth me to the heart.  But I fear you will all smart for it, and I pray God her Majesty feel it not, if it be His blessed will.  She meaneth well and sincerely to have peace, but God knows that this is not the way.  Well, God Almighty defend us and the realm, and especially her Majesty.  But look for a sharp war, or a miserable peace, to undo others and ourselves after.”

Walsingham, too, was determined not to act as a commissioner.  If his failing health did not serve as an excuse, he should be obliged to refuse, he said, and so forfeit her Majesty’s favour, rather than be instrumental in bringing about her ruin, and that of his country.  Never for an instant had the Secretary of State faltered in his opposition to the timid policy of Burghley.  Again and again he had detected the intrigues of the Lord-Treasurer and Sir James Croft, and ridiculed the “comptroller’s peace.”

And especially did Walsingham bewail the implicit confidence which the Queen placed in the sugary words of Alexander, and the fatal parsimony which caused her to neglect defending herself against Scotland; for he was as well informed as was Farnese himself of Philip’s arrangements with the Scotch lords, and of the subsidies in men and money by which their invasion of England was to be made part of the great scheme.  “No one thing,” sighed Walsingham, “doth more prognosticate an alteration of this estate, than that a prince of her Majesty’s judgment should neglect, in respect of a little charges, the stopping of so dangerous a gap. . . .  The manner of our cold and careless proceeding here, in this time of peril, maketh me to take no comfort of my recovery of health, for that I see, unless it shall please God in mercy and miraculously to preserve us, we cannot long stand.”

Leicester, finding himself unable to counteract the policy of Barneveld and his party, by expostulation or argument, conceived a very dangerous and criminal project before he left the country.  The facts are somewhat veiled in mystery; but he was suspected, on weighty evidence, of a design to kidnap both Maurice and Barneveld, and carry them off to England.  Of this intention, which was foiled at any rate, before it could be carried into execution, there is perhaps