Majesty's service. I am for myself upon an hour's warning to obey her
good pleasure."

Thus far the Earl had maintained his dignity. He had yielded to the
solicitations of the States, and had thereby exceeded his commission, and
gratified his ambition, but he had in no wise forfeited his self-respect.
But--so soon as the first unquestionable intelligence of the passion to
which the Queen had given way at his misdoings reached him--he began to
whimper, The straightforward tone which Davison had adopted in his
interviews with Elizabeth, and the firmness with which he had defended
the cause of his absent friend, at a moment when he had plunged himself
into disgrace, was worthy of applause. He deserved at least a word of
honest thanks.

Ignoble however was the demeanor of the Earl towards the man--for whom
he had but recently been unable to invent eulogies sufficiently warm--
so soon as he conceived the possibility of sacrificing his friend as the
scape-goat for his own fault. An honest schoolboy would have scorned to
leave thus in the lurch a comrade who had been fighting his battles so
honestly.

"How earnest I was," he wrote to the lords of the council, 9th March,
1586, "not only to acquaint her Majesty, but immediately upon the first
motion made by the States, to send Mr. Davison over to her with letters,
I doubt not but he will truly affirm for me; yea, and how far against my
will it was, notwithstanding any reasons delivered me, that he and others
persisted in, to have me accept first of this place . . . . . The
extremity of the case, and my being persuaded that Mr. Davison might have
better satisfied her Majesty, than I perceive he can, caused, me-neither
arrogantly nor contemptuously, but even merely and faithfully--to do her