the time, neither
leaving them utterly hopeless, nor at full liberty to seek for relief
elsewhere, especially in England, or else some pleasing motion of peace,
wherein the French King will offer his mediation with Spain. Meantime the
people, wearied with the troubles, charges, and hazard of the war, shall
be rocked asleep, the provision for their defence neglected, some
Provinces nearest the danger seduced, the rest by their defection
astonished, and the enemy by their decay and confusions, strengthened.
This is the scope whereto the doings of the French King, not without
intelligence with the Spanish sovereign, doth aim, whatever is
pretended."

There was a wide conviction that the French King was dealing falsely with
the Provinces. It seemed certain that he must be inspired by intense
jealousy of England, and that he was unlikely, for the sake of those
whose "religion, popular liberty, and rebellion against their sovereign,"
he could not but disapprove, to allow Queen Elizabeth to steal a march
upon him, and "make her own market with Spain to his cost and
disadvantage."

In short, it was suspected--whether justly or not will be presently
shown--that Henry III. "was seeking to blear the eyes of the world, as
his brother Charles did before the Massacre of St. Bartholomew." As the
letters received from the Dutch envoys in France became less and less
encouraging, and as the Queen was informed by her ambassador in Paris of
the tergiversations in Paris, she became the more anxious lest the States
should be driven to despair. She therefore wrote to Davison, instructing
him "to nourish in them underhand some hope--as a thing proceeding from
himself--that though France should reject them, yet she would not abandon
them."

He was directed to find out, by circuitous means, what towns they would
offer to her as security for any advances she might be induced to make,
and to ascertain the amount of monthly contributions towards the support
of the war that they were still capable of furnishing. She was beginning
to look with dismay at the expatriation of wealthy merchants and
manufacturers going so rapidly forward, now that Ghent had fallen and
Brussels and Antwerp were in such imminent peril. She feared that, while
so much valuable time had been thrown away, the Provinces had become too
much impoverished to do their own part in their own defence; and she was
seriously alarmed at rumours which had become prevalent of a popular