History of the United Netherlands, 1585 part 5 | Page 8

that
be counsellors plain and direct to the furtherance of all good service for
her Majesty and the realm; and if it be the will of God to plague us that
go, and you that tarry, for our sins, yet let us not be negligent to seek to
please the Lord."
The Earl was not negligent at any rate in seeking to please the Queen,
but she was singularly hard to please. She had never been so uncertain
in her humours as at this important crisis. She knew, and had publicly
stated as much, that she was "embarking in a war with the greatest
potentate in Europe;" yet now that the voyage had fairly commenced,
and the waves were rolling around her, she seemed anxious to put back
to the shore. For there was even a whisper of peace-negotiations, than
which nothing could have been more ill-timed. "I perceive by your
message," said Leicester to Walsingham, "that your peace with Spain
will go fast on, but this is not the way." Unquestionably it was not the
way, and the whisper was, for the moment at least, suppressed.
Meanwhile Leicester had reached Harwich, but the post "bestowed on
him," contained, as usual, but cold comfort. He was resolved, however,
to go manfully forward, and do the work before him, until the
enterprise should prove wholly impracticable. It is by the light afforded
by the secret never-published correspondence of the period with which
we are now occupied, that the true characteristics of Elizabeth, the Earl
of Leicester, and other prominent personages, must be scanned, and the
study is most important, for it was by those characteristics, in

combination with other human elements embodied in distant parts of
Christendom, that the destiny of the world was determined. In that age,
more than in our own perhaps, the influence of the individual was
widely and intensely felt. Historical chymistry is only rendered possible
by a detection of the subtle emanations, which it was supposed would
for ever elude analysis, but which survive in those secret, frequently
ciphered intercommunications. Philip II., William of Orange, Queen
Elizabeth, Alexander Farnese, Robert Dudley, never dreamed--when
disclosing their inmost thoughts to their trusted friends at momentous
epochs--that the day would come on earth when those secrets would be
no longer hid from the patient enquirer after truth. Well for those whose
reputations before the judgment-seat of history appear even
comparatively pure, after impartial comparison of their motives with
their deeds.
"For mine own part, Mr. Secretary," wrote Leicester, "I am resolved to
do that which shall be fit for a poor man's honour, and honestly to obey
her Majesty's commandment. Let the rest fall out to others, it shall not
concern me. I mean to assemble myself to the camp, where my
authority must wholly lie, and will there do that which in good reason
and duty I shall be bound to do. I am sorry that her Majesty doth deal in
this sort, and if content to overthrow so willingly her own cause. If
there can be means to salve this sore, I will. If not,--I tell you what shall
become of me, as truly as God lives."
Yet it is remarkable, that, in spite of this dark intimation, the Earl, after
all, did not state what was to become of him if the sore was not salved.
He was, however, explicit enough as to the causes of his grief, and very
vehement in its manifestations. "Another matter which shall concern
me deeply," he said, "and all the subjects there, is now by you to be
carefully considered, which is--money. I find that the money is already
gone, and this now given to the treasurer will do no more than pay to
the end of the month. I beseech you look to it, for by the Lord! I will
bear no more so miserable burdens; for if I have no money to pay them,
let them come home, or what else. I will not starve them, nor stay them.
There was never gentleman nor general so sent out as I am; and if
neither Queen nor council care to help it, but leave men desperate, as I
see men shall be, that inconvenience will follow which I trust in the
Lord I shall be free of."

He then used language about himself, singularly resembling the
phraseology employed by Elizabeth concerning him, when she was
scolding the Netherland commissioners for the dilatoriness and
parsimony of the States.
"For mine own part," he said, "I have taken upon me this voyage, not as
a desperate nor forlorn man, but as one as well contented with his place
and calling at home as any subject was ever. My cause was not, nor is,
any other than the Lord's and the Queen's. If the