The effect produced by the first explosion of the Queen’s wrath was indeed one of universal suspicion and distrust.  The greatest care had been taken, however, that the affair should be delicately handled, for Heneage, while, doing as much hurt by honesty as, others by naughtiness, had modified his course as much as he dared in deference to the opinions of the Earl himself, and that of his English counsellors.  The great culprit himself, assisted by his two lawyers, Clerk and Killigrew—­had himself drawn the bill of his own indictment.  The letters of the Queen to the States, to the council, and to the Earl himself, were, of necessity, delivered, but the reprimand which Heneage had been instructed to fulminate was made as harmless as possible.  It was arranged that he should make a speech before the council; but abstain from a protocol.  The oration was duly pronounced, and it was, of necessity, stinging.  Otherwise the disobedience to the Queen, would have been flagrant.  But the pain inflicted was to disappear with the first castigation.  The humiliation was to be public and solemn, but it was not to be placed on perpetual record.

“We thought best,” said Leicester, Heneage, Clerk, and Killigrew—­“In according to her Majesty’s secret instructions—­to take that course which might least endanger the weak estate of the Provinces—­that is to say, to utter so much in words as we hoped might satisfy her excellent Majesty’s expectation, and yet leave them nothing in writing to confirm that which was secretly spread in many places to the hindrance of the good course of settling these affairs.  Which speech, after Sir Thomas Heneage had devised, and we both perused and allowed, he, by our consent and advice, pronounced to the council of state.  This we did think needful—­especially because every one of the council that was present at the reading of her Majesty’s first letters, was of the full mind, that if her Majesty should again show the least mislike of the present government, or should not by her next letters confirm it, they, were all undone—­for that every man would cast with himself which way to make his peace.”

Thus adroitly had the “poor gentleman, who could not find it in his heart to come again into the place, where—­by his own sufferings torn—­he was made to appear so lewd a person”—­provided that there should remain no trace of that lewdness and of his sovereign’s displeasure, upon the record of the States.  It was not long, too, before the Earl was enabled to surmount his mortification; but the end was not yet.

The universal suspicion, consequent on these proceedings, grew most painful.  It pointed to one invariable quarter.  It was believed by all that the Queen was privately treating for peace, and that the transaction was kept a secret not only from the States but from her own most trusted counsellors also.  It would be difficult to exaggerate the pernicious effects of this suspicion.  Whether it was a well-grounded