e," said she to Leicester, "hath gone
further--in assuring the States that we would make no peace without their
privity and assent--than he had commission; for that our direction
was--if our meaning had been well set down, and not mistaken by our
Secretary--that they should have been only let understand that in any
treaty that might pass between us and Spain, they might be well assured
we would have no less care of their safety than of our own." Secretary
Walsingham was not likely to mistake her Majesty's directions in this or
any other important affair of state. Moreover, it so happened that the
Queen had, in her own letter to Heneage, made the same statement which
she now chose to disavow. She had often a convenient way of making
herself misunderstood, when she thought it desirable to shift
responsibility from her own shoulders upon those of others; but upon this
occasion she had been sufficiently explicit. Nevertheless, a scape-goat
was necessary, and unhappy the subordinate who happened to be within her
Majesty's reach when a vicarious sacrifice was to be made. Sir Francis
Walsingham was not a man to be brow-beaten or hood-winked, but Heneage
was doomed to absorb a fearful amount of royal wrath.

"What phlegmatical reasons soever were made you," wrote the Queen, who
but three weeks before had been so gentle and affectionate to her,
ambassador, "how happeneth it that you will not remember, that when a man
hath faulted and committed by abettors thereto, neither the one nor the
other will willingly make their own retreat. Jesus! what availeth wit,
when it fails the owner at greatest need? Do that you are bidden, and
leave your considerations for your own affairs. For in some things you
had clear commandment, which you did not, and in others none, and did. We
princes be wary enough of our bargains. Think you I will be bound by your
own speech to make no peace for mine own matters without their consent?
It is enough that I injure not their country nor themselves in making
peace for them without their consent. I am assured of your dutiful
thoughts, but I am utterly at squares with this childish dealing."

Blasted by this thunderbolt falling upon his head out of serenest sky,
the sad. Sir. Thomas remained, for a time, in a state of political
annihilation. 'Sweet Robin' meanwhile, though stunned, was
unscathed--thanks to the convenient conductor at his side. For, in
Elizabeth's court, mediocrity was not always golden, nor w