Parma had heard, he said, through Bodman, from Comptroller Croft, that the Queen would willingly receive a proper envoy.  It was very easy to see, he observed, that the English counsellors were seeking every means of entering into communication with Spain, and that they were doing so with the participation of the Queen!  Lord-Treasurer Burghley and Comptroller Croft had expressed surprise that the Prince had not yet sent a secret agent to her Majesty, under pretext of demanding explanations concerning Lord Leicester’s presence in the Provinces, but in reality to treat for peace.  Such an agent, it had been intimated, would be well received.  The Lord-Treasurer and the Comptroller would do all in their power to advance the negotiation, so that, with their aid and with the pacific inclination of the Queen, the measures proposed in favour of Leicester would be suspended, and perhaps the Earl himself and all the English would be recalled.

The Queen was further represented as taking great pains to excuse both the expedition of Sir Francis Drake to the Indies, and the mission of Leicester to the Provinces.  She was said to throw the whole blame of these enterprises upon Walsingham and other ill-intentioned personages, and to avow that she now understood matters better; so that, if Parma would at once send an envoy, peace would, without question, soon be made.

Parma had expressed his gratification at these hopeful dispositions on the part of Burghley and Croft, and held out hopes of sending an agent to treat with them, if not directly with her Majesty.  For some time past—­ according to the Prince—­the English government had not seemed to be honestly seconding the Earl of Leicester, nor to correspond with his desires.  “This makes me think,” he said, “that the counsellors before-mentioned, being his rivals, are trying to trip him up.”

In such a caballing, prevaricating age, it is difficult to know which of all the plotters and counterplotters engaged in these intrigues could accomplish the greatest amount of what—­for the sake of diluting in nine syllables that which could be more forcibly expressed in one—­was then called diplomatic dissimulation.  It is to be feared, notwithstanding her frequent and vociferous denials, that the robes of the “imperial votaress” were not so unsullied as could be wished.  We know how loudly Leicester had complained—­we have seen how clearly Walsingham could convict; but Elizabeth, though convicted, could always confute:  for an absolute sovereign, even without resorting to Philip’s syllogisms of axe and faggot, was apt in the sixteenth century to have the best of an argument with private individuals.

The secret statements of Parma-made, not for public effect, but for the purpose of furnishing his master with the most accurate information he could gather as to English policy—­are certainly entitled to consideration.  They were doubtless founded upon the statements of individuals rejoicing in no very elevated character; but those individuals had no motive to deceive their patron.  If they clashed with the vehement declarations of very eminent personages, it must be admitted, on the other hand, that they were singularly in accordance with the silent eloquence of important and mysterious events.