er, in company with Sir Philip
Sidney, among the throng that conducted the French prince to the
Netherlands.

When Elizabeth's 'poor frog,' as she called Alencon, had been duly led
through the gorgeous pageant prepared in his honour at Antwerp, on
February 17, the English lords and their train, glad to be free of their
burden, passed to Flushing, and hastened home with as little ceremony as
might be. Raleigh alone remained behind, to carry some special message
of compliment from the Queen to the Prince of Orange. It is Raleigh
himself, in his _Invention of Shipping_, who gives us this interesting
information, and he goes on to say that when the Prince of Orange
'delivered me his letters to her Majesty, he prayed me to say to the
Queen from him, _Sub umbra alarum tuarum protegimur_: for certainly,
said he, they had withered in the bud, and sunk in the beginning of
their navigation, had not her Majesty assisted them.' It would have been
natural to entrust to Leicester such confidential utterances as these
were a reply to. But Elizabeth was passing through a paroxysm of rage
with Leicester at the moment. She ventured to call him 'traitor' and to
accuse him of conspiring with the Prince of Orange. Notwithstanding
this, his influence was still paramount with her, and it was
characteristic of her shrewd petulance to confide in Leicester's
_protege_, although not in Leicester himself. Towards the end of March,
Raleigh settled at the English Court.

On April 1, 1582, Elizabeth issued from Greenwich a strange and
self-contradictory warrant with regard to service in Ireland, and the
band of infantry hitherto commanded in that country by a certain Captain
Annesley, now deceased. The words must be quoted verbatim:--

For that our pleasure is to have our servant Walter Rawley [this
was the way in which the name was pronounced during Raleigh's
lifetime] trained some time longer in that our realm [Ireland]
for his better experience in martial affairs, and for the
especial care which We have to do him good, in respect of his
kindred that have served Us, some of them (as you know) near
about Our person [probably Mrs. Catherine Ashley, who was
Raleigh's aunt]; these are to require you that the leading of
the said band may be committed to the said Rawley; and for that
he is, for some considerations, by Us excused to stay here. Our
pleasure is that the said band be, in the meantime, till he