at all.  And I pray you to remember that I have not had one penny of her Majesty towards all these charges of mine—­not one penny-and, by all truth, I have already laid out above five thousand pounds.  Her Majesty appointed eight thousand pounds for the levy, which was after the rate of four hundred horse, and, upon my fidelity, there is shipped, of horse of service, eight hundred, so that there ought eight thousand more to have been paid me.  No general that ever went that was not paid to the uttermost of these things before he went, but had cash for his provision, which her Majesty would not allow me—­not one groat.  Well, let all this go, it is like I shall be the last shall bear this, and some must suffer for the people.  Good Mr. Secretary, let her Majesty know this, for I deserve God-a-mercy, at the least.”

Leicester, to do him justice, was thoroughly alive to the importance of the Crisis.  On political principle, at any rate, he was a firm supporter of Protestantism, and even of Puritanism; a form of religion which Elizabeth detested, and in which, with keen instinct, she detected a mutinous element against the divine right of kings.  The Earl was quite convinced of the absolute necessity that England should take up the Netherland matter most vigorously, on pain of being herself destroyed.  All the most sagacious counsellors of Elizabeth were day by day more and more confirmed in this opinion, and were inclined heartily to support the new Lieutenant-General.  As for Leicester himself, while fully conscious of his own merits, and of his firm intent to do his duty, he was also grateful to those who were willing to befriend him in his arduous enterprise.

“I have received a letter from my Lord Willoughby,” he said, “to my seeming, as wise a letter as I have read a great while, and not unfit for her Majesty’s sight.  I pray God open her eyes, that they may behold her present estate indeed, and the wonderful means that God doth offer unto her.  If she lose these opportunities, who can look for other but dishonour and destruction?  My Lord Treasurer hath also written me a most hearty and comfortable letter touching this voyage, not only in showing the importance of it, both for her Majesty’s own safety and the realm’s, but that the whole state of religion doth depend thereon, and therefore doth faithfully promise his whole and best assistance for the supply of all wants.  I was not a little glad to receive such a letter from him at this time.”

And from on board the ‘Amity,’ ready to set sail, he expressed his thanks to Burghley, at finding him so “earnestly bent for the good supply and maintenance of us poor men sent in her Majesty’s service and our country’s.”

As for Walsingham, earnestly a defender of the Netherland cause from the beginning, he was wearied and disgusted with fighting against the Queen’s parsimony and caprice.  “He is utterly discouraged,” said Leicester to Burghley, “to deal any more in these causes.  I pray God your Lordship grow not so too; for then all will to the ground; on my poor side especially.”