After this fabulous preamble, they proceeded to handle the matter of fact with logical precision. It was absurd, they said, that Mr. Wilkes and Lord Leicester should affect to confound the persons who appeared in the a.s.sembly with the States themselves; as if those individuals claimed or exercised sovereignty. Any man who had observed what had been pa.s.sing during the last fifteen years, knew very well that the supreme authority did not belong to the thirty or forty individuals who came to the meetings . . . . The n.o.bles, by reason of their ancient dignity and splendid possessions, took counsel together over state matters, and then, appearing at the a.s.sembly, deliberated with the deputies of the cities.
The cities had mainly one form of government--a college of counsellors; or wise men, 40, 32, 28, or 24 in number, of the most respectable out of the whole community. They were chosen for life, and vacancies were supplied by the colleges themselves out of the ma.s.s of citizens. These colleges alone governed the city, and that which had been ordained by them was to be obeyed by all the inhabitants--a system against which there had never been any rebellion. The colleges again, united with those of the n.o.bles, represented the whole state, the whole body of the population; and no form of government could be imagined, they said, that could resolve, with a more thorough knowledge of the necessities of the country, or that could execute its resolves with more unity of purpose and decisive authority. To bring the colleges into an a.s.sembly could only be done by means of deputies. These deputies, chosen by their colleges, and properly instructed, were sent to the place of meeting. During the war they had always been commissioned to resolve in common on matters regarding the liberty of the land. These deputies, thus a.s.sembled, represented, by commission, the States; but they are not, in their own persons, the States; and no one of them had any such pretension. "The people of this country," said the States, "have an aversion to all ambition; and in these disastrous times, wherein nothing but trouble and odium is to be gathered by public employment, these commissions are accounted "munera necessaria". . . . This form of government has, by G.o.d"s favour, protected Holland and Zeeland, during this war, against a powerful foe, without lose of territory, without any popular outbreak, without military mutiny, because all business has been transacted with open doors; and because the very smallest towns are all represented, and vote in the a.s.sembly."
In brief, the const.i.tution of the United Provinces was a matter of fact.
It was there in good working order, and had, for a generation of mankind, and throughout a tremendous war, done good service. Judged by the principles of reason and justice, it was in the main a wholesome const.i.tution, securing the independence and welfare of the state, and the liberty and property of the individual, as well certainly as did any polity then existing in the world. It seemed more hopeful to abide by it yet a little longer than to adopt the throat-cutting system by the people, recommended by Wilkes and Leicester as an improvement on the old const.i.tution. This was the view of Lord Buckhurst. He felt that threats of throat-cutting were not the best means of smoothing and conciliating, and he had come over to smooth and conciliate.
"To spend the time," said he, "in private brabbles and piques between the States and Lord Leicester, when we ought to prepare an army against the enemy, and to repair the shaken and torn state, is not a good course for her Majesty"s service." Letters were continually circulating from hand to hand among the antagonists of the Holland party, written out of England by Leicester, exciting the ill-will of the populace against the organized government. "By such means to bring the States into hatred," said Buckhurst, "and to stir up the people against them; tends to great damage and miserable end. This his Lordship doth full little consider, being the very way to dissolve all government, and so to bring all into confusion, and open the door for the enemy. But oh, how lamentable a thing it is, and how doth my Lord of Leicester abuse her Majesty, making her authority the means to uphold and justify, and under her name to defend and maintain, all his intolerable errors. I thank G.o.d that neither his might nor his malice shall deter me from laying open all those things which my conscience knoweth, and which appertaineth to be done for the good of this cause and of her Majesty"s service. Herein, though I were sure to lose my life, yet will I not offend neither the one nor the other, knowing very well that I must die; and to die in her Majesty"s faithful service, and with a good conscience, is far more happy than the miserable life that I am in. If Leicester do in this sort stir up the people against the States to follow his revenge against them, and if the Queen do yield no better aid, and the minds of Count Maurice and Hohenlo remain thus in fear and hatred of him, what good end or service can be hoped for here?"--[Buckhurst to Walsingham, 13th June, 1587. (Brit. Mus. Galba, D.
I. p. 95, MS.)]
Buckhurst was a man of unimpeached integrity and gentle manners. He had come over with the best intentions towards the governor-general, and it has been seen that he boldly defended him in, his first interviews with the States. But as the intrigues and underhand plottings of the Earl"s agents were revealed to him, he felt more and more convinced that there was a deep laid scheme to destroy the government, and to const.i.tute a virtual and absolute sovereignty for Leicester. It was not wonderful that the States were standing vigorously on the defensive.
The subtle Deventer, Leicester"s evil genius, did not cease to poison the mind of the governor, during his protracted absence, against all persons who offered impediments to the cherished schemes of his master and himself. "Your Excellency knows very well," he said, "that the state of this country is democratic, since, by failure of a prince, the sovereign disposition of affairs has returned to the people. That same people is everywhere so incredibly affectionate towards you that the delay in your return drives them to extreme despair. Any one who would know the real truth has but to remember the fine fear the States-General were in when the news of your displeasure about the 4th February letter became known."
Had it not been for the efforts of Lord Buckhurst in calming the popular rage, Deventer a.s.sured the Earl that the writers of the letter would "have scarcely saved their skins;" and that they had always continued in great danger.
He vehemently urged upon Leicester, the necessity of his immediate return--not so much for reasons drawn from the distracted state of the country, thus left to a provisional government and torn by faction--but because of the facility with which he might at once seize upon arbitrary power. He gratified his master by depicting in lively colours the abject condition into which Barneveld, Maurice, Hohenlo, and similar cowards, would be thrown by his sudden return.
"If," said he, "the States" members and the counts, every one of them, are so desperately afraid of the people, even while your Excellency is afar off, in what trepidation will they be when you are here! G.o.d, reason, the affection of the sovereign people, are on your side. There needs, in a little commonwealth like ours, but a wink of the eye, the slightest indication of dissatisfaction on your part, to take away all their valour from men who are only brave where swords are too short. A magnanimous prince like yourself should seek at once the place where such plots are hatching, and you would see the fury of the rebels change at once to cowardice. There is more than one man here in the Netherlands that brags of what he will do against the greatest and most highly endowed prince in England, because he thinks he shall never see him again, who, at the very first news of your return, my Lord, would think only of packing his portmanteau, greasing his boots, or, at the very least, of sneaking back into his hole."
But the st.u.r.dy democrat was quite sure that his Excellency, that most magnanimous prince of England would not desert his faithful followers--thereby giving those "filthy rascals," his opponents, a triumph, and "doing so great an injury to the sovereign people, who were ready to get rid of them all at a single blow, if his Excellency would but say the word."
He then implored the magnanimous prince to imitate the example of Moses, Joshua, David, and that of all great emperors and captains, Hebrew, Greek, and Roman, to come at once to the scene of action, and to smite his enemies hip and thigh. He also informed his Excellency, that if the delay should last much longer, he would lose all chance of regaining power, because the sovereign people had quite made up their mind to return to the dominion of Spain within three months, if they could not induce his Excellency to rule over them. In that way at least, if in no other, they could circ.u.mvent those filthy rascals whom they so much abhorred, and frustrate the designs of Maurice, Hohenlo, and Sir John Norris, who were represented as occupying the position of the triumvirs after the death of Julius Caesar.
To place its neck under the yoke of Philip II. and the Inquisition, after having so handsomely got rid of both, did not seem a sublime manifestation of sovereignty on the part of the people, and even Deventer had some misgivings as to the propriety of such a result. "What then will become of our beautiful churches?" he cried, "What will princes say, what will the world in general say, what will historians say, about the honour of the English nation?"
As to the first question, it is probable that the prospect of the reformed churches would not have been cheerful, had the inquisition been re-established in Holland and Utrecht, three months after that date. As to the second, the world and history were likely to reply, that the honour of the English nation was fortunately not entirely, entrusted at that epoch to the "magnanimous prince" of Leicester, and his democratic, counsellor-in-chief, burgomaster Deventer.
These are but samples of the ravings which sounded incessantly in the ears of the governor-general. Was it strange that a man, so thirsty for power, so gluttonous of flattery, should be influenced by such pa.s.sionate appeals? Addressed in strains of fulsome adulation, convinced that arbitrary power was within his reach, and a.s.sured that he had but to wink his eye to see his enemies scattered before him, he became impatient of all restraint; and determined, on his return, to crush the States into insignificance.
Thus, while Buckhurst had been doing his best as a mediator to prepare the path for his return, Leicester himself end his partisans had been secretly exerting themselves to make his arrival the signal for discord; perhaps of civil war. The calm, then, immediately succeeding the mission of Buckhurst was a deceitful one, but it seemed very promising. The best feelings were avowed and perhaps entertained. The States professed great devotion to her Majesty and friendly regard for the governor. They distinctly declared that the arrangements by which Maurice and Hohenlo had been placed in their new positions were purely provisional ones, subject to modifications on the arrival of the Earl. "All things are reduced to a quiet calm," said Buckhurst, "ready to receive my Lord of Leicester and his authority, whenever he cometh."
The quarrel of Hohenlo with Sir Edward Norris had been, by the exertions of Buckhurst, amicably arranged: the Count became an intimate friend of Sir John, "to the gladding of all such as wished well to, the country;"
but he nourished a deadly hatred to the Earl. He ran up and down like a madman whenever his return was mentioned. "If the Queen be willing to take the sovereignty," he cried out at his own dinner-table to a large company, "and is ready to proceed roundly in this action, I will serve her to the last drop of my blood; but if she embrace it in no other sort than hitherto she hath done, and if Leicester is to return, then am I as good a man as Leicester, and will never be commanded by him. I mean to continue on my frontier, where all who love me can come and find me."
He declared to several persons that he had detected a plot on the part of Leicester to have him a.s.sa.s.sinated; and the a.s.sertion seemed so important, that Villiers came to Councillor Clerk to confer with him on the subject. The worthy Bartholomew, who had again, most reluctantly, left his quiet chambers in the Temple to come again among the guns and drums, which his soul abhorred, was appalled by such a charge. It was best to keep it a secret, he said, at least till the matter could be thoroughly investigated. Villiers was of the same opinion, and accordingly the councillor, in the excess of his caution, confided the secret only--to whom? To Mr. Atye, Leicester"s private secretary. Atye, of course, instantly told his master--his master in a frenzy of rage, told the Queen, and her Majesty, in a paroxysm of royal indignation at this new insult to her favourite, sent furious letters to her envoys, to the States-General, to everybody in the Netherlands--so that the a.s.sertion of Hohenlo became the subject of endless recrimination.
Leicester became very violent, and denounced the statement as an impudent falsehood, devised wilfully in order to cast odium upon him and to prevent his return. Unquestionably there was nothing in the story but table-talk; but the Count would have been still more ferocious towards Leicester than he was, had he known what was actually happening at that very moment.
While Buckhurst was at Utrecht, listening to the "solemn-speeches" of the militia-captains and exchanging friendly expressions at stately banquets with Moeurs, he suddenly received a letter in cipher from her Majesty.
Not having the key, he sent to Wilkes at the Hague. Wilkes was very ill; but the despatch was marked pressing and immediate, so he got out of bed and made the journey to Utrecht. The letter, on being deciphered, proved to be an order from the Queen to decoy Hohenlo into some safe town, on pretence of consultation and then to throw him into prison, on the ground that he had been tampering with the enemy, and was about to betray the republic to Philip.
The commotion which would have been excited by any attempt to enforce this order, could be easily imagined by those familiar with Hohenlo and with the powerful party in the Netherlands of which he was one of the chiefs. Wilkes stood aghast as he deciphered the letter. Buckhurst felt the impossibility of obeying the royal will. Both knew the cause, and both foresaw the consequences of the proposed step. Wilkes had heard some rumours of intrigues between Parma"s agents at Deventer and Hohenlo, and had confided them to Walsingham, hoping that the Secretary would keep the matter in his own breast, at least till further advice. He was appalled at the sudden action proposed on a mere rumour, which both Buckhurst and himself had begun to consider an idle one. He protested, therefore, to Walsingham that to comply with her Majesty"s command would not only be nearly impossible, but would, if successful, hazard the ruin of the republic. Wilkes was also very anxious lest the Earl of Leicester should hear of the matter. He was already the object of hatred to that powerful personage, and thought him capable of accomplishing his destruction in any mode. But if Leicester could wreak his vengeance upon his enemy Wilkes by the hand of his other deadly enemy Hohenlo, the councillor felt that this kind of revenge would have a double sweetness for him. The Queen knows what I have been saying, thought Wilkes, and therefore Leicester knows it; and if Leicester knows it, he will take care that Hohenlo shall hear of it too, and then wo be unto me. "Your honour knoweth," he said to Walsingham, "that her Majesty can hold no secrets, and if she do impart it to Leicester, then am I sped."
Nothing came of it however, and the relations of Wilkes and Buckhurst with Hohenlo continued to be friendly. It was a lesson to Wilkes to be more cautious even with the cautious Walsingham. "We had but bare suspicions," said Buckhurst, "nothing fit, G.o.d knoweth, to come to such a reckoning. Wilkes saith he meant it but for a premonition to you there; but I think it will henceforth be a premonition to himself--there being but bare presumptions, and yet shrewd presumptions."
Here then were Deventer and Leicester plotting to overthrow the government of the States; the States and Hohenlo arming against Leicester; the extreme democratic party threatening to go over to the Spaniards within three months; the Earl accused of attempting the life of Hohenlo; Hohenlo offering to shed the last drop of his blood for Queen Elizabeth; Queen Elizabeth giving orders to throw Hohenlo into prison as a traitor; Councillor Wilkes trembling for his life at the hands both of Leicester and Hohenlo; and Buckhurst doing his best to conciliate all parties, and imploring her Majesty in vain to send over money to help on the war, and to save her soldiers from starving.
For the Queen continued to refuse the loan of fifty thousand pounds which the provinces solicited, and in hope of which the States had just agreed to an extra contribution of a million florins (L100,000), a larger sum than had been levied by a single vote since the commencement of the war.
It must be remembered, too, that the whole expense of the war fell upon Holland and Zeeland. The Province of Utrecht, where there was so strong a disposition to confer absolute authority upon Leicester, and to destroy the power of the States-General contributed absolutely nothing. Since the Loss of Deventer, nothing could be raised in the Provinces of Utrecht, Gelderland or Overyssel; the Spaniards levying black mail upon the whole territory, and impoverishing the inhabitants till they became almost a nullity. Was it strange then that the States of Holland and Zeeland, thus bearing nearly the whole; burden of the war, should be dissatisfied with the hatred felt toward them by their sister Provinces so generously protected by them? Was it unnatural that Barneveld, and Maurice, and Hohenlo, should be disposed to bridle the despotic inclinations of Leicester, thus fostered by those who existed, as it were, at their expense?
But the Queen refused the L50,000, although Holland and Zeeland had voted the L100,000. "No reason that breedeth charges," sighed Walsingham, "can in any sort be digested."
It was not for want of vehement entreaty on the part of the Secretary of State and of Buckhurst that the loan was denied. At least she was entreated to send over money for her troops, who for six months past were unpaid. "Keeping the money in your coffers," said Buckhurst, "doth yield no interest to you, and--which is above all earthly, respects--it shall be the means of preserving the lives of many of your faithful subjects which otherwise must needs, daily perish. Their miseries, through want of meat and money, I do protest to G.o.d so much moves, my soul with commiseration of that which is past, and makes my heart tremble to think of the like to come again, that I humbly beseech your Majesty, for Jesus Christ sake, to have compa.s.sion on their lamentable estate past, and send some money to prevent the like hereafter."
These were moving words,--but the money did not come--charges could not be digested.
"The eternal G.o.d," cried Buckhurst, "incline your heart to grant the pet.i.tion of the States for the loan of the L50,000, and that speedily, for the dangerous terms of the State here and the mighty and forward preparation of the enemy admit no minute of delay; so that even to grant it slowly is to deny it utterly."
He then drew a vivid picture of the capacity of the Netherlands to a.s.sist the endangered realm of England, if delay were not suffered to destroy both commonwealths, by placing the Provinces in an enemy"s hand.
"Their many and notable good havens," he said, "the great number of ships and mariners, their impregnable towns, if they were in the hands of a potent prince that would defend them, and, lastly, the state of this sh.o.r.e; so near and opposite unto the land and coast of England--lo, the sight of all this, daily in mine eye, conjoined with the deep, enrooted malice of that your so mighty enemy who seeketh to regain them; these things entering continually into the meditations of my heart--so much do they import the safety of yourself and your estate--do enforce me, in the abundance of my love and duty to your Majesty, most earnestly to speak, write, and weep unto you, lest when the occasion yet offered shall be gone by, this blessed means of your defence, by G.o.d"s provident goodness thus put into your hand, will then be utterly lost, lo; never, never more to be recovered again."
It was a n.o.ble, wise, and eloquent appeal, but it was muttered in vain.
Was not Leicester--his soul filled with petty schemes of reigning in Utrecht, and destroying the const.i.tutional government of the Provinces--in full possession of the royal ear? And was not the same ear lent, at most critical moment, to the insidious Alexander Farnese, with his whispers of peace, which were potent enough to drown all the preparations for the invincible Armada?
Six months had rolled away since Leicester had left the Netherlands; six months long, the Provinces, left in a condition which might have become anarchy, had been saved by the wise government of the States-General; six months long the English soldiers had remained unpaid by their sovereign; and now for six weeks the honest, eloquent, intrepid, but gentle Buckhurst had done his best to conciliate all parties, and to mould the Netherlanders into an impregnable bulwark for the realm of England. But his efforts were treated with scorn by the Queen. She was still maddened by a sense of the injuries done by the States to Leicester. She was indignant that her envoy should have accepted such lame apologies for the 4th of February letter; that he should have received no better atonement for their insolent infringements of the Earl"s orders during his absence; that he should have excused their contemptuous proceedings and that, in short, he should have been willing to conciliate and forgive when he should have stormed and railed. "You conceived, it seemeth," said her Majesty, "that a more sharper manner of proceeding would have exasperated matters to the prejudice of the service, and therefore you did think it more fit to wash the wounds rather with water than vinegar, wherein we would rather have wished, on the other side, that you had better considered that festering wounds had more need of corrosives than lenitives. Your own judgment ought to have taught that such a alight and mild kind of dealing with a people so ingrate and void of consideration as the said Estates have showed themselves toward us, is the ready way to increase their contempt."
The envoy might be forgiven for believing that at any rate there would be no lack of corrosives or vinegar, so long as the royal tongue or pen could do their office, as the unfortunate deputies had found to their cost in their late interviews at Greenwich, and as her own envoys in the Netherlands were perpetually finding now. The Queen was especially indignant that the Estates should defend the tone of their letters to the Earl on the ground that he had written a piquant epistle to them. "But you can manifestly see their untruths in naming it a piquant letter,"
said Elizabeth, "for it has no sour or sharp word therein, nor any clause or reprehension, but is full of gravity and gentle admonition. It deserved a thankful answer, and so you may maintain it to them to their reproof."
The States doubtless thought that the loss of Deventer and, with it, the almost ruinous condition of three out of the seven Provinces, might excuse on their part a little piquancy of phraseology, nor was it easy for them to express grat.i.tude to the governor for his grave and gentle admonitions, after he had, by his secret doc.u.ment of 24th November, rendered himself fully responsible for the disaster they deplored.
She expressed unbounded indignation with Hohenlo, who, as she was well aware, continued to cherish a deadly hatred for Leicester. Especially she was exasperated, and with reason, by the a.s.sertion the Count had made concerning the governor"s murderous designs upon him. ""Tis a matter,"
said the Queen, "so foul and dishonourable that doth not only touch greatly the credit of the Earl, but also our own honour, to have one who hath been nourished and brought up by us, and of whom we have made show to the world to have extraordinarily favoured above any other of our own subjects, and used his service in those countries in a place of that reputation he held there, stand charged with so horrible and unworthy a crime. And therefore our pleasure is, even as you tender the continuance of our favour towards you, that you seek, by all the means you may, examining the Count Hollock, or any other party in this matter, to discover and to sift out how this malicious imputation hath been wrought; for we have reason to think that it hath grown out of some cunning device to stay the Earl"s coming, and to discourage him from the continuance of his service in those countries."
And there the Queen was undoubtedly in the right. Hohenlo was resolved, if possible, to make the Earl"s government of the Netherlands impossible.
There was nothing in the story however; and all that by the most diligent "sifting" could ever be discovered, and all that the Count could be prevailed upon to confess, was an opinion expressed by him that if he had gone with Leicester to England, it might perhaps have fared ill with him.
But men were given to loose talk in those countries. There was great freedom of tongue and pen; and as the Earl, whether with justice or not, had always been suspected of strong tendencies to a.s.sa.s.sination, it was not very wonderful that so reckless an individual as Hohenlo should promulgate opinions on such subjects, without much reserve. "The number of crimes that have been imputed to me," said Leicester, "would be incomplete, had this calumny not been added to all preceding ones." It is possible that a.s.sa.s.sination, especially poisoning, may have been a more common-place affair in those days than our own. At any rate, it is certain that accusations of such crimes were of ordinary occurrence. Men were apt to die suddenly if they had mortal enemies, and people would gossip. At the very same moment, Leicester was deliberately accused not only of murderous intentions towards Hohenlo, but towards Thomas Wilkes and Count Lewis William of Na.s.sau likewise. A trumpeter, arrested in Friesland, had just confessed that he had been employed by the Spanish governor of that Province, Colonel Verdugo, to murder Count Lewis, and that four other persons had been entrusted with the same commission. The Count wrote to Verdugo, and received in reply an indignant denial of the charge. "Had I heard of such a project," said the Spaniard, "I would, on the contrary, have given you warning. And I give you one now." He then stated, as a fact known to him on unquestionable authority, that the Earl of Leicester had a.s.sa.s.sins at that moment in his employ to take the life of Count Lewis, adding that as for the trumpeter, who had just been hanged for the crime suborned by the writer, he was a most notorious lunatic. In reply, Lewis, while he ridiculed this plea of insanity set up for a culprit who had confessed his crime succinctly and voluntarily, expressed great contempt for the counter-charge against Leicester. "His Excellency," said the st.u.r.dy little Count, "is a virtuous gentleman, the most pious and G.o.d-fearing I have ever known. I am very sure that he could never treat his enemies in the manner stated, much less his friends. As for yourself, may G.o.d give me grace, in requital of your knavish trick, to make such a war upon you as becomes an upright soldier and a man of honour."
Thus there was at least one man--and a most important, one--in the opposition--party who thoroughly believed in the honour of the governor-general.
The Queen then proceeded to lecture Lord Buckhurst very severely for having tolerated an instant the States" proposition to her for a loan of L50,000. "The enemy," she observed, "is quite unable to attempt the siege of any town."
Buckhurst was, however, instructed, in case the States" million should prove insufficient to enable the army to make head against the enemy, and in the event of "any alteration of the good-will of the people towards her, caused by her not yielding, in this their necessity, some convenient support," to let them then understand, "as of himself, that if they would be satisfied with a loan of ten or fifteen thousand pounds, he, would do his best endeavour to draw her Majesty to yield unto the furnishing of such a sum, with a.s.sured hope to obtaining the same at her hands."
Truly Walsingham was right in saying that charges of any kind were difficult of digestion: Yet, even at that moment, Elizabeth had no more attached subjects in England than sere the burghers of the Netherlands; who were as anxious ever to annex their territory to her realms.
"Thus, having expressed an affection for Leicester which no one doubted, having once more thoroughly brow-beaten the states, and having soundly lectured Buckhurst--as a requital for his successful efforts to bring about a more wholesome condition of affairs--she gave the envoy a parting stab, with this postscript;--"There is small disproportion," she said "twist a fool who useth not wit because he hath it not, and him that useth it not when it should avail him." Leicester, too, was very violent in his attacks upon Buckhurst. The envoy had succeeded in reconciling Hohenlo with the brothers Norris, and had persuaded Sir John to offer the hand of friendship to Leicester, provided it were sure of being accepted.
Yet in this desire to conciliate, the Earl found renewed cause for violence. "I would have had more regard of my Lord of Buckhurst," he said, "if the case had been between him and Norris, but I must regard my own reputation the more that I see others would impair it. You have deserved little thanks of me, if I must deal plainly, who do equal me after this sort with him, whose best place is colonel under me, and once my servant, and preferred by me to all honourable place he had." And thus were enterprises of great moment, intimately affecting the safety of Holland, of England, of all Protestantism, to be suspended between triumph and ruin, in order that the spleen of one individual--one Queen"s favourite--might be indulged. The contempt of an insolent grandee for a distinguished commander--himself the son, of a Baron, with a mother the dear friend of her sovereign--was to endanger the existence of great commonwealths. Can the influence of the individual, for good or bad, upon the destinies of the race be doubted, when the characters and conduct of Elizabeth and Leicester, Burghley and Walsingham, Philip and Parma, are closely scrutinized and broadly traced throughout the wide range of their effects?
"And I must now, in your Lordship"s sight," continued Leicester, "be made a counsellor with this companion, who never yet to this day hath done so much as take knowledge of my mislike of him; no, not to say this much, which I think would well become his better, that he was sorry, to hear I had mislike to him, that he desired my suspension till he might either speak with me, or be charged from me, and if then he were not able to satisfy me, he would acknowledge his fault, and make me any honest satisfaction. This manner of dealing would have been no disparagement to his better. And even so I must think that your Lordship doth me wrong, knowing what you do, to make so little difference between John Norris, my man not long since, and now but my colonel under me, as though we were equals. And I cannot but more than marvel at this your proceeding, when I remember your promises of friendship, and your opinions resolutely set down . . . . You were so determined before you went hence, but must have become wonderfully enamoured of those men"s unknown virtues in a few days of acquaintance, from the alteration that is grown by their own commendations of themselves. You know very well that all the world should not make me serve with John Norris. Your sudden change from mislike to liking has, by consequence, presently cast disgrace upon me. But all is not gold that glitters, nor every shadow a perfect representation . . . .
You knew he should not serve with me, but either you thought me a very inconstant man, or else a very simple soul, resolving with you as I did, for you to take the course you have done." He felt, however, quite strong in her Majesty"s favour. He knew himself her favourite, beyond all chance or change, and was sure, so long as either lived, to thrust his enemies, by her aid, into outer darkness. Woe to Buckhurst, and Norris, and Wilkes, and all others who consorted with his enemies. Let them flee from the wrath to come! And truly they were only too anxious to do so, for they knew that Leicester"s hatred was poisonous. "He is not so facile to forget as ready to revenge," said poor Wilkes, with neat alliteration.
"My very heavy and mighty adversary will disgrace and undo me.
"It sufficeth," continued Leicester, "that her Majesty both find my dealings well enough, and so, I trust will graciously use me. As for the reconciliations and love-days you have made there, truly I have liked well of it; for you did sow me your disposition therein before, and I allowed of it, and I had received letters both from Count Maurice and Hohenlo of their humility and kindness, but now in your last letters you say they have uttered the cause of their mislike towards me, which you forbear to write of, looking so speedily for my return."
But the Earl knew well enough what the secret was, for had it not been specially confided by the judicious Bartholomew to Atye, who had incontinently told his master? "This pretense that I should kill Hohenlo," cried Leicester, "is a matter properly foisted in to bring me to choler. I will not suffer it to rest, thus. Its authors shall be duly and severely punished. And albeit I see well enough the plot of this wicked device, yet shall it not work the effect the devisers have done it for. No, my Lord, he is a villain and a false lying knave whosoever he be, and of what, nation soever that hath forged this device. Count Hohenlo doth know I never gave him cause to fear me so much. There were ways and means offered me to have quitted him of the country if I had so liked. This new monstrous villany which is now found out I do hate and detest, as I would look for the right judgment of G.o.d to fall upon myself, if I had but once imagined it. All this makes good proof of Wilkes"s good dealing with me, that hath heard of so vile and villainous a reproach of me, and never gave me knowledge. But I trust your Lordship shall receive her Majesty"s order for this, as for a matter that toucheth herself in honour, and me her poor servant and minister, as dearly as any matter can do; and I will so take it and use it to the uttermost."
We have seen how anxiously Buckhurst had striven to do his duty upon a most difficult mission. Was it unnatural that so fine a nature as his should be disheartened, at reaping nothing but sneers and contumely from the haughty sovereign he served, and from the insolent favourite who controlled her councils? "I beseech your Lordship," he said to Burghley, "keep one ear for me, and do not hastily condemn me before you hear mine answer. For if I ever did or shall do any acceptable service to her Majesty, it was in, the stay and appeasing of these countries, ever ready at my coming to have cast off all good respect towards us, and to have entered even into some desperate cause. In the meantime I am hardly thought of by her Majesty, and in her opinion condemned before mine answer be understood. Therefore I beseech you to help me to return, and not thus to lose her Majesty"s favour for my good desert, wasting here my mind, body, my wits, wealth, and all; with continual toils, taxes, and troubles, more than I am able to endure."