negotiation.  It was quite right to appoint commissioners, but it was never for an instant to be forgotten that the sole object of treating was to take the English unawares.  “And therefore do you guide them to this end,” said the King with pious unction, “which is what you owe to God, in whose service I have engaged in this enterprise, and to whom I have dedicated the whole.”  The King of France, too—­that unfortunate Henry III., against whose throne and life Philip maintained in constant pay an organized band of conspirators—­was affectionately adjured, through the Spanish envoy in Paris, Mendoza,—­to reflect upon the advantages to France of a Catholic king and kingdom of England, in place of the heretics now in power.

But Philip, growing more and more sanguine, as those visions of fresh crowns and conquered kingdoms rose before him in his solitary cell, had even persuaded himself that the deed was already done.  In the early days of December, he expressed a doubt whether his 14th November letter had reached the Duke, who by that time was probably in England.  One would have thought the King addressing a tourist just starting on a little pleasure-excursion.  And this was precisely the moment when Alexander had been writing those affectionate phrases to the Queen which had been considered by the counsellors at Greenwich so “princely and Christianly,” and which Croft had pronounced such “very good words.”

If there had been no hostile, fleet to prevent, it was to be hoped, said Philip, that, in the name of God, the passage had been made.  “Once landed there,” continued the King, “I am persuaded that you will give me a good account of yourself, and, with the help of our Lord, that you will do that service which I desire to render to Him, and that He will guide our cause, which is His own, and of such great importance to His Church.”  A part of the fleet would soon after arrive and bring six thousand Spaniards, the Pope’s million, and other good things, which might prove useful to Parma, presupposing that they would find him established on the enemy’s territory.

This conviction that the enterprise had been already accomplished grew stronger in the King’s breast every day.  He was only a little disturbed lest Farnese should have misunderstood that 14th November letter.  Philip—­as his wont was—­had gone into so many petty and puzzling details, and had laid down rules of action suitable for various contingencies, so easy to put comfortably upon paper, but which might become perplexing in action, that it was no wonder he should be a little anxious.  The third contingency suggested by him had really occurred.  There had been a composition between the foreign mercenaries and the French King.  Nevertheless they had also been once or twice defeated, and this was contingency number two.  Now which of the events would the Duke consider as having really occurred.  It was to be hoped that he would have not seen cause for delay, for in truth number three