ately refused compliance
with his earnest demands to be recalled, and coldly neglected his
importunities for pecuniary assistance.

Compelled to carry on a war against an armed rebellion with such gold
only as could be extracted from loyal swords; stung to the heart by the
suspicion of which he felt himself the object at home, and by the hatred
with which he was regarded in the provinces; outraged in his inmost
feelings by the murder of Escovedo; foiled, outwitted, reduced to a
political nullity by the masterly tactics of the "odious heretic of
heretics" to whom he had originally offered his patronage and the royal
forgiveness, the high-spirited soldier was an object to excite the
tenderness even of religious and political opponents. Wearied with the
turmoil of camps without battle and of cabinets without counsel, he
sighed for repose, even if it could be found only in a cloister or the
grave. "I rejoice to see by your letter," he wrote, pathetically, to John
Andrew Doria, at Genoa, "that your life is flowing on with such calmness,
while the world around me is so tumultuously agitated. I consider you
most fortunate that you are passing the remainder of your days for God
and yourself; that you are not forced to put yourself perpetually in the
scales of the world's events, nor to venture yourself daily on its
hazardous games." He proceeded to inform his friend of his own painful
situation, surrounded by innumerable enemies, without means of holding
out more than three months, and cut off from all assistance by a
government which could not see that if the present chance were lost all
was lost. He declared it impossible for him to fight in the position to
which he was reduced, pressed as he was within half a mile of the point
which he had always considered as his last refuge. He stated also that
the French were strengthening themselves in Hainault, under Alencon, and
that the King of France was in readiness to break in through Burgundy,
should his brother obtain a firm foothold in the provinces. "I have
besought his Majesty over and over again," he continued, "to send to me
his orders; if they come they shall be executed, unless they arrive too
late. They have cut of our hands and we have now nothing for it but to
stretch forth our heads also to the axe. I grieve to trouble you with my
sorrows, but I trust to your sympathy as a man and a friend. I hope that
you will remember me in your prayers, for you can put your trust whe