that neither the Queen of England, nor any other prince whatever except
his most Christian-Majesty should take a bite at this country, at least
at this Province, and with that view, while waiting for news from France,
I will keep things in suspense, and spin them out as long as it is
possible to do."

The news from France happened soon to be very conclusive, and it then
became difficult even for Falek to believe--after intelligence received
of the accord between Henry III. and the Guises--that his Christian
Majesty, would be inclined for a bite at the Netherlands. This duplicity
on the part of so leading a personage furnishes a key to much of the
apparent dilatoriness on the part of the English government: It has been
seen that Elizabeth, up to the last moment, could not fairly comprehend
the ineffable meanness of the French monarch. She told Ortel that she
saw no reason to believe in that great Catholic conspiracy against
herself and against all Protestantism which was so soon to be made public
by the King's edict of July, promulgated at the very instant of the
arrival in England of the Netherland envoys. Then that dread fiat had
gone forth, the most determined favourer of the French alliance could no
longer admit its possibility, and Falck became the more open to that
peculiar line of argument which Leicester had suggested with regard to
one of the other deputies. "I will do my best," wrote Walsingham, "to
procure that Paul Buys and Falck shall receive underhand some reward."

Besides Menin, Falck, and Buys, were Noel de Caron, an experienced
diplomatist; the poet-soldier, Van der Does; heroic defender of Leyden;
De Gryze, Hersolte, Francis Maalzoon, and three legal Frisians of pith
and substance, Feitsma, Aisma, and Jongema; a dozen Dutchmen together--
as muscular champions as ever little republic sent forth to wrestle with
all comers in the slippery ring of diplomacy. For it was instinctively