"It is thought meet," wrote Walsingham to Davison, "that you should do
your best endeavour to procure that Ste. Aldegonde may be restrained,
which in mine opinion were fit to be handled in such sort, as the
restraint might rather proceed from themselves than by your solicitation.
And yet rather than he should remain at liberty to practise underhand,
whereof you seem to stand in great doubt, it is thought meet that you
should make yourself a partizan, to seek by all the means that you may to
have him restrained under the guard of some well affected patriot until
the Earl's coming, at what time his cause may receive examination."

This was, however, a result somewhat difficult to accomplish; for twenty
years of noble service in the cause of liberty had not been utterly in
vain, and there were many magnanimous spirits to sympathize with a great
man struggling thus in the meshes of calumny. That the man who
challenged rather than shunned investigation, should be thrown into
prison, as if he were a detected felon upon the point of absconding,
seemed a heartless and superfluous precaution. Yet Davison and others
still feared the man whom they felt obliged to regard as a baffled
intriguer. "Touching the restraint of Ste. Aldegonde," wrote Davison to
Lord Burghley, "which I had order from Mr. Secretary to procure
underhand, I find the difficulty will be great in regard of his many
friends and favourers, preoccupied with some opinion of his innocence,
although I have travailled with divers of them underhand, and am promised
that some order shall be taken in that behalf, which I think will be
harder to execute as long as Count Maurice is here. For Ste.
Aldegonde's affection, I find continual matter to suspect it inclined to
a peace, and that as one notably prejudging our scope and proceeding in
this cause, doth lie in wait for an occasion to set it forward, being, as
it seems, fed with a hope of 'telle quelle liberte de conscience,' which
the Prince of Parma and others of his council have, as he confesseth,