endeavour to account for the neglect with which he was treated, and for
the destitution of his army. Hopelessly did they attempt to counteract
those "advertisements of most fearful instance," as Richard Cavendish
expressed himself, which were circulating everywhere.

Thanks to the babbling of the very men, whose chief instructions had been
to hold their tongues, and to listen with all their ears, the secret
negotiations between Parma and the English counsellors became the town-
talk at Antwerp, the Hague, Amsterdam, Brussels, London. It is true that
it was impossible to know what was actually said and done; but that there
was something doing concerning which Leicester was not to be informed was
certain. Grafigni, during one of his visits to the obedient provinces,
brought a brace of greyhounds and a couple of horses from England, as a
present to Alexander, and he perpetually went about, bragging to every
one of important negotiations which he was conducting, and of his
intimacy with great personages in both countries. Leicester,
on the other hand, was kept in the dark. To him Grafigni made no
communications, but he once sent him a dish of plums, "which," said the
Earl, with superfluous energy, "I will boldly say to you, by the living
God, is all that I have ever had since I came into these countries."
When it is remembered that Leicester had spent many thousand pounds in
the Netherland cause, that he had deeply mortgaged his property in order
to provide more funds, that he had never received a penny of salary from
the Queen, that his soldiers were "ragged and torn like rogues-pity to
see them," and were left without the means of supporting life; that he
had been neglected, deceived, humiliated, until he was forced to describe
himself as a "forlorn man set upon a forlorn hope," it must be conceded
that Grafigni's present of a dish of plums could hardly be sufficient to
make him very happy.