tting on horseback on the 15th
July, 1588, with her head full of Tilbury Fort and Medina Sidonia, should
have as little relish for the affairs of Ahab and Jehosophat, as for
those melting speeches of Diomede and of Turnus, to which Dr. Valentine
Dale on his part was at that moment invoking her attention.

On the 20th July, the deputies were informed by Leicester that her
Majesty would grant them an interview, July 20, and that they must come
into his quarter of the palace and await her arrival.

Between six and seven in the evening she came into the throne-room, and
the deputies again fell on their knees before her.

She then seated herself--the deputies remaining on their knees on her
right side and the Earl of Leicester standing at her left--and proceeded
to make many remarks touching her earnestness in the pending negotiations
to provide for their religious freedom. It seemed that she must have
received a hint from Walsingham on the subject.

"I shall provide," she said, "for the maintenance of the reformed
worship."

De Dieu--"The enemy will never concede it."

The Queen.--"I think differently."

De Dieu.--"There is no place within his dominions where he has permitted
the exercise of the pure religion. He has never done so."

The Queen.--"He conceded it in the pacification of Ghent."

De Dieu.--"But he did not keep his agreement. Don John had concluded with
the States, but said he was not held to his promise, in case he should
repent; and the King wrote afterwards to our States, and said that he was
no longer bound to his pledge."

The Queen.--"That is quite another thing."

De Dieu.--"He has very often broken his faith."

The Queen.--"He shall no longer be allowed to do so. If he does not keep
his word, that is my affair, not yours. It is my business to find the
remedy. Men would say, see in what a desolation the Queen of England has
brought this poor people. As to the freedom of worship, I should have
proposed three or four years' interval--leaving it afterwards to the
decision of the States."

De Dieu.--"But the majority of the States is Popish."

The Queen.--"I mean the States-General, not the States of any particular
Province."

De Dieu.--"The greater part of the States-General is Popish."

The Queen.--"I mean the three estates--the clergy, the nobles, and the
cities." The Queen--as the deputies observed--here fell into an error.
She thought that prelates of the reformed Church, as in England