determined not to act as a commissioner. If his
failing health did not serve as an excuse, he should be obliged to
refuse, he said, and so forfeit her Majesty's favour, rather than be
instrumental in bringing about her ruin, and that of his country. Never
for an instant had the Secretary of State faltered in his opposition to
the timid policy of Burghley. Again and again he had detected the
intrigues of the Lord-Treasurer and Sir James Croft, and ridiculed the
"comptroller's peace."

And especially did Walsingham bewail the implicit confidence which the
Queen placed in the sugary words of Alexander, and the fatal parsimony
which caused her to neglect defending herself against Scotland; for he
was as well informed as was Farnese himself of Philip's arrangements with
the Scotch lords, and of the subsidies in men and money by which their
invasion of England was to be made part of the great scheme. "No one
thing," sighed Walsingham, "doth more prognosticate an alteration of this
estate, than that a prince of her Majesty's judgment should neglect, in
respect of a little charges, the stopping of so dangerous a gap. . . .
The manner of our cold and careless proceeding here, in this time of
peril, maketh me to take no comfort of my recovery of health, for that I
see, unless it shall please God in mercy and miraculously to preserve us,
we cannot long stand."

Leicester, finding himself unable to counteract the policy of Barneveld
and his party, by expostulation or argument, conceived a very dangerous
and criminal project before he left the country. The facts are somewhat
veiled in mystery; but he was suspected, on weighty evidence, of a design
to kidnap both Maurice and Barneveld, and carry them off to England. Of
this intention, which was foiled at any rate, before it could be carried
into execution, there is perhaps not conclusive proof, but it has already
been shown, from a deciphered letter, that the Queen had once given
Buckhurst and Wilkes peremptory orders to seize the person of Hohenlo,
and it is quite possible that similar orders may have been received at a
later moment with regard to the young Count and the Advocate. At any
rate, it is certain that late in the autumn, some friends of Barneveld
entered his bedroom, at the Hague, in the dead of night, and informed him
that a plot was on foot to lay violent hands upon him, and that an armed
force was already on its way to execute this purpose of Leicester, before
the da