likely to be granted. Sir Thomas, perplexed, puzzled, blindfolded, and
brow-beaten, always endeavoring to obey orders, when he could comprehend
them, and always hectored and lectured whether he obeyed them or not--
ruined in purse by the expenses, of a mission on which he had been sent
without adequate salary--appalled at the disaffection waging more
formidable every hour in Provinces which were recently so loyal to her
Majesty, but which were now pervaded by a suspicion that there was
double-dealing upon her part became quite sick of his life. He fell
seriously ill, and was disappointed, when, after a time, the physicians
declared him convalescent. For when when he rose from his sick-bed, it
was only to plunge once more, without a clue, into the labyrinth where he
seemed to be losing his reason. "It is not long," said he to Walsingham,
"since I looked to have written you no more letters, my extremity was so
great. . . But God's will is best, otherwise I could have liked better
to have cumbered the earth no longer, where I find myself contemned, and
which I find no reason to see will be the better in the wearing . . .
It were better for her Majesty's service that the directions which come
were not contrarious one to another, and that those you would have serve
might know what is meant, else they cannot but much deceive you, as well
as displease you."

Public opinion concerning the political morality of the English court
was not gratifying, nor was it rendered more favourable by these recent
transactions. "I fear," said Heneage, "that the world will judge what
Champagny wrote in one of his letters out of England (which I have lately
seen) to be over true. His words be these, 'Et de vray, c'est le plus
fascheux et le plus incertain negocier de ceste court, que je pense soit
au monde.'" And so "basting," as he said, "with a weak body and a
willing mind; to do, he feared, no good work," he set forth from
Middelburgh to rejoin Leicester at Arnheim, in order to obey, as well as