"I did acquaint Sir Christopher Hatton," wrote Walsingham to Leicester,
"with the letter which Ste. Aldegonde wrote to your Lordship, which,
carrying a true picture of an afflicted mind, cannot but move an honest
heart, weighing the rare parts the gentleman is endowed withal, to pity
his distressed estate, and, to procure him relief and comfort, which Mr.
Vice-Chamberlain (Hatton) bath promised on his part to perform. I
thought good to send Ste. Aldegonde's letter unto the Lord Treasurer
(Burghley), who heretofore has carried a hard conceit of the gentleman,
hoping that the view of his letter will breed some remorse towards him.
I have also prayed his Lordship, if he see cause, to acquaint her Majesty
with the said letter."

But his high public career was closed. He lived down calumny; and put
his enemies to shame, but the fatal error which he had committed, in
taking the side of Spain rather than of England at so momentous a crisis,
could never be repaired. He regained the good opinion of the most
virtuous and eminent personages in Europe, but in the noon of life he
voluntarily withdrew from public affairs. The circumstances just
detailed had made him impossible as a political leader, and it was
equally impossible for him to play a secondary part. He occasionally
consented to be employed in special diplomatic missions, but the serious
avocations of his life now became theological and literary. He sought--
in his own words--to penetrate himself still more deeply than ever with
the spirit of the reformation, and to imbue the minds of the young with
that deep love for the reformed religion which had been the guiding
thought of his own career. He often spoke with a sigh of his compulsory
exile from the field where he had been so conspicuous all his lifetime;
he bitterly lamented the vanished dream of the great national union
between Belgium and Holland, which had flattered his youth and his
manhood; and he sometimes alluded with bitterness to the calumny which