Never had there been a more delusive diplomacy, and it was natural that
the lieutenant-general abroad and the statesman at home should be sad and
indignant, seeing England drifting to utter shipwreck while pursuing that
phantom of a pacific haven. Had Walsingham and himself tampered with the
enemy, as some counsellors he could name had done, Leicester asserted
that the gallows would be thought too good for them; and yet he hoped he
might be hanged if the whole Spanish faction in England could procure for
the Queen a peace fit for her to accept.

Certainly it was quite impossible for the Spanish-faction to bring about
a peace. No human power could bring it about. Even if England had been
willing and able to surrender Holland, bound hand and foot, to Philip,
even then she could only have obtained a hollow armistice. Philip had
sworn in his inmost soul the conquest of England and the dethronement of
Elizabeth. His heart was fixed. It was only by the subjugation of
England that he hoped to recover the Netherlands. England was to be
his stepping-stone to Holland. The invasion was slowly but steadily
maturing, and nothing could have diverted the King from his great
purpose. In the very midst of all these plots and counterplots, Bodmans
and Grafignis, English geldings and Irish greyhounds, dishes of plums and
autograph letters of her Majesty and his Highness, the Prince was
deliberately discussing all the details of the invasion, which, as it was
then hoped, would be ready by the autumn of the year 1586. Although he
had sent a special agent to Philip, who was to state by word of mouth
that which it was deemed unsafe to write, yet Alexander, perpetually
urged by his master, went at last more fully into particulars than he
had ever ventured to do before; and this too at the very moment when
Elizabeth was most seriously "lending her ear" to negotiation, and most
vehemently expressing her wrath at Sir Thomas Heneage for dealing
candidly with the States-General.