History of the United Netherlands, 1586 part 1 | Page 4

pleasure, as he said, and I do think he did but as he was commanded. How great a grief it must be to an honest heart and a true, faithful servant, before his own face, to a company of very wise and grave counsellors, who had conceived a marvellous opinion before of my credit with her Majesty, to be charged now with a manifest and wilful contempt! Matter enough to have broken any man's heart, that looked rather for thanks, as God doth know I did when I first heard of Mr. Heneage's arrival--I must say to your Lordship, for discharge of my duty, I can be no fit man to serve here--my disgrace is too great--protesting to you that since that day I cannot find it in my heart to come into that place, where, by my own sufferings torn, I was made to be thought so lewd a person."
He then comforted himself--as he had a right to do--with the reflection that this disgrace inflicted was more than he deserved, and that such would be the opinion of those by whom he was surrounded.
"Albeit one thing," he said, "did greatly comfort me, that they all best knew the wrong was great I had, and that her Majesty was very wrongfully informed of the state of my cause. I doubt not but they can and will discharge me, howsoever they shall satisfy her Majesty. And as I would rather wish for death than justly to deserve her displeasure; so, good my Lord, this disgrace not coming for any ill service to her, pray procure me a speedy resolution, that I may go hide me and pray for her. My heart is broken, though thus far I can quiet myself, that I know I have done her Majesty as faithful and good service in these countries as ever she had done her since she was Queen of England . . . . . Under correction, my good Lord, I have had Halifax law--to be condemned first and inquired upon after. I pray God that no man find this measure that I have done, and deserved no worse."
He defended himself--as Davison had already defended him--upon the necessities of the case.
"I, a poor gentleman," he said, "who have wholly depended upon herself alone--and now, being commanded to a service of the greatest importance that ever her Majesty employed any servant in, and finding the occasion so serving me, and the necessity of time such as would not permit such delays, flatly seeing that if that opportunity were lost, the like again for her service and the good of the realm was never, to be looked for, presuming upon the favour of my prince, as many servants have done, exceeding somewhat thereupon, rather than breaking any part of my commission, taking upon me a place whereby I found these whole countries could be held at her best devotion, without binding her Majesty to any such matter as she had forbidden to the States before finding, I say, both the time and opportunity to serve, and no lack but to trust to her gracious acceptation, I now feel that how good, how honourable, how profitable soever it be, it is turned to a worse part than if I had broken all her commissions and commandments, to the greatest harm, and dishonour, and danger, that may be imagined against her person, state, and dignity."
He protested, not without a show of reason, that he was like to be worse punished "for well-doing than any man that had committed a most heinous or traitorous offence," and he maintained that if he had not accepted the government, as he had done, "the whole State had been gone and wholly lost." All this--as we have seen--had already been stoutly urged by Davison, in the very face of the tempest, but with no result, except to gain the, enmity of both parties to the quarrel. The ungrateful Leicester now expressed confidence that the second go-between would be more adroit than the first had proved. "The causes why," said he, "Mr. Davison could have told--no man better--but Mr. Heneage can now tell, who hath sought to the uttermost the bottom of all things. I will stand to his report, whether glory or vain desire of title caused me to step one foot forward in the matter. My place was great enough and high enough before, with much less trouble than by this, besides the great indignation of her Majesty . . . . . If I had overslipt the good occasion then in danger, I had been worthy to be hanged, and to be taken for a most lewd servant to her Majesty, and a dishonest wretch to my country."
But diligently as Heneage had sought to the bottom of all things, he