King's commissioners; and
Champagny--more gouty and more irascible than ever--"chopped in" at every
word spoken by King's envoys or Queen's, contradicted everybody,
repudiated everything said or done by Andrew de Loo, or any of the other
secret negotiators during the past year, declared that there never had
been a general cessation of arms promised, and that, at any rate, times
were now changed, and such an armistice was inadmissible! Then the
English answered with equal impatience, and reproached the King's
representatives with duplicity and want of faith, and censured them for
their unseemly language, and begged to inform Champagny and Richardot
that they had not then to deal with such persons as they might formerly
have been in the habit of treating withal, but with a "great prince who
did justify the honour of her actions," and they confuted the positions
now assumed by their opponents with official documents and former
statements from those very opponents' lips. And then, after all this
diplomatic and rhetorical splutter, the high commissioners recovered
their temper and grew more polite, and the King's "envoys excused
themselves in a mild, merry manner," for the rudeness of their speeches,
and the Queen's envoys accepted their apologies with majestic urbanity,
and so they separated for the day in a more friendly manner than they had
done the day before.'

"You see to what a scholar's shift we have been driven for want of
resolution," said Valentine Dale. "If we should linger here until there
should be broken heads, in what case we should be God knoweth. For I can
trust Champagny and Richardot no farther than I can see them."

And so the whole month of June passed by; the English commissioners
"leaving no stone unturned to get a quiet cessation of arms in general
terms," and being constantly foiled; yet perpetually kept in hope that
the point would soon be carried. At the same time the signs of the
approaching invasion seemed to thicken. "In my opinion," said Dale, "as
Phormio spake in matters of wars, it were very requisite that my Lord
Harry should be always on this coast, for they will steal out from hence
as closely as they can, either to join with the Spanish navy or to land,
and they may be very easily scattered, by God's grace." And, with the
honest pride of a protocol-maker, he added, "our postulates do trouble
the King's commissioners very much, and do bring them to despair."

The excellent Doctor had n