t she would
"lend her ear." And that royal ear was lent, and almost fatal was the
distillment poured into its porches. The pith and marrow of the great
Netherland enterprise was sapped by the slow poison of the ill-timed
negotiation. The fruit of Drake's splendid triumphs in America was
blighted by it. The stout heart of the vainglorious but courageous
Leicester was sickened by it, while, meantime, the maturing of the great
armada-scheme, by which the destruction of England was to be
accomplished, was furthered, through the unlimited procrastination so
precious to the heart of Philip.

Fortunately the subtle Walsingham was there upon the watch to administer
the remedy before it was quite too late; and to him England and the
Netherlands were under lasting obligations. While Alexander and Philip
suspected a purpose on the part of the English government to deceive
them, they could not help observing that the Earl of Leicester was both
deserted and deceived. Yet it had been impossible for the peace-party in
the government wholly to conceal their designs, when such prating fellows
as Grafigni and De Loo were employed in what was intended to be a secret
negotiation. In vain did the friends of Leicester in the Netherlands
endeavour to account for the neglect with which he was treated, and for
the destitution of his army. Hopelessly did they attempt to counteract
those "advertisements of most fearful instance," as Richard Cavendish
expressed himself, which were circulating everywhere.

Thanks to the babbling of the very men, whose chief instructions had been
to hold their tongues, and to listen with all their ears, the secret
negotiations between Parma and the English counsellors became the
town-talk at Antwerp, the Hague, Amsterdam, Brussels, London. It is true
that it was impossible to know what was actually said and done; but that
there was something doing concerning which Leicester was not to be
informed was certain. Grafigni, during one of his visits to the obedient
provinces, brought a brace of greyhounds and a couple of horses from
England, as a present to Alexander, and he perpetually went about,
bragging to every one of important negotiations which he was conducting,
and of his intimacy with great personages in both countries. Leicester,
on the other hand, was kept in the dark. To him Grafigni made no
communications, but he once sent him a dish of plums, "which," said the
Earl, with superfluous energy, "I will boldly