ll receive her Majesty's order for this, as for a matter that toucheth
herself in honour, and me her poor servant and minister, as dearly as any
matter can do; and I will so take it and use it to the uttermost."

We have seen how anxiously Buckhurst had striven to do his duty upon a
most difficult mission. Was it unnatural that so fine a nature as his
should be disheartened, at reaping nothing but sneers and contumely from
the haughty sovereign he served, and from the insolent favourite who
controlled her councils? "I beseech your Lordship," he said to Burghley,
"keep one ear for me, and do not hastily condemn me before you hear mine
answer. For if I ever did or shall do any acceptable service to her
Majesty, it was in, the stay and appeasing of these countries, ever ready
at my coming to have cast off all good respect towards us, and to have
entered even into some desperate cause. In the meantime I am hardly
thought of by her Majesty, and in her opinion condemned before mine
answer be understood. Therefore I beseech you to help me to return, and
not thus to lose her Majesty's favour for my good desert, wasting here my
mind, body, my wits, wealth, and all; with continual toils, taxes, and
troubles, more than I am able to endure."

But besides his instructions to smooth and expostulate, in which he had
succeeded so well, and had been requited so ill; Buckhurst had received a
still more difficult commission. He had been ordered to broach the
subject of peace, as delicately as possible, but without delay; first
sounding the leading politicians, inducing them to listen to the Queen's
suggestions on the subject, persuading them that they ought to be
satisfied with the principles of the pacification of Ghent, and that it
was hopeless for the Provinces to continue the war with their mighty
adversary any longer.

Most reluctantly had Buckhurst fulfilled his sovereign's commands in this
disastrous course. To talk to the Hollanders of the Ghent pacification
seemed puerile. That memorable treaty, ten years before, had been one of
the great landmarks of progress, one of the great achievements of William
the Silent. By its provisions, public exercise of the reformed religion
had been secured for the two Provinces of Holland and Zeeland, and it had
been agreed that the secret practice of those rites should be elsewhere
winked at, until such time as the States-General, under the auspices of
Philip II., should otherwise ordain. But wa