Moreover, what the Queen did, set the fashion for all the courtiers, to the profit and prosperity of merchants and craftsmen.  Earls might secretly writhe at the prospect of entertaining their sovereign with suitable magnificence, but the tradesmen and purveyors rubbed their hands.  When a company of Flemings was employed for four years on the carving of the beams and panels of the Middle Temple Hall, or noblemen to be in the fashion built new banquet-rooms in the Italian style, with long windows and galleries, English, Flemish and Huguenot builders flocked to the kingdom.  If she took with one hand she gave with the other, and it was not without reason that the common folk of England long after she was dead called their daughters after “good Queen Bess.”

To Armadas and Barlowe it was a novel and splendid pageant.  After they were presented to the Queen, and expressed their modest thanks for the honor of being sent upon her service, they withdrew to a window-recess to watch the company.  The gentlemen pensioners in gold-embroidered suits and lace-edged ruffs, the dignified councilors in richer if darker robes, the maids of honor, bright as damask roses moving in the wind, all circled around one pale woman with keen gray-blue eyes that never betrayed her.  A little apart, speaking now and then to some courtier or councilor, stood the Spanish Ambassador in somber black and gold, like a watchful spider in a garden of rich flowers.  Ralegh, careless and debonair, gave him a frank salutation as he came to speak to his captains.

“You may repent of the venture and wish to stay at Court,” he said smiling.  “The Queen thinks well of ye.”

“Not I,” growled Barlowe, and Armadas laughed, “My Lord, do you think so ill of us as to deem us weathercocks in the wind?”

“You must take care to avoid the clutches of the Inquisition,” Ralegh added, not lowering his voice noticeably, yet not speaking loud enough to be heard by others.  “I have hastened the fitting out of the ships and delayed your coming to Court lest Philip’s ferrets be set on you.  The life of Kings and Queens is like to a game of chess.”

“Of primero rather, it seems to me,” said Armadas, “or the game the Spanish call ombre.  Chess is brain against brain, fair play.  In the other one may win the game by the fall of the cards—­or by cheatery."[4]

“A good simile, Philip,” said Ralegh, with shining eyes. “’T is all very well to say, as some do, that if old King Harry were alive he’d have our Englishmen out of Spanish prisons.  But in his day Spain had hardly begun her conquests over seas, and the Inquisition had not tasted English blood.  It was Philip that taught our men primero—­and the best player is he who can bluff, so playing his hand that his enemy guesses not the truth.  And the stake in this game is—­Empire.”