"I pray God to open her eyes," said Walsingham, "to see the evident peril
of the course she now holdeth . . . . If it had pleased her to have
followed the advice given her touching the French ambassador, our ships
had been released . . . . but she has taken a very strange course by
writing a very sharp letter unto the French King, which I fear will cause
him to give ear to those of the League, and make himself a party with
them, seeing so little regard had to him here. Your Lordship may see
that our courage doth greatly increase, for that we make no difficulty to
fall out with all the world . . . . . I never saw her worse affected
to the poor King of Navarre, and yet doth she seek in no sort to yield
contentment to the French King. If to offend all the world;" repeated
the Secretary bitterly, "be it good cause of government, then can we not
do amiss . . . . . I never found her less disposed to take a course
of prevention of the approaching mischiefs toward this realm than at this
present. And to be plain with you, there is none here that hath either
credit or courage to deal effectually with her in any of her great
causes."

Thus distracted by doubts and dangers, at war with her best friends, with
herself, and with all-the world, was Elizabeth during the dark days and
months which, preceded and followed the execution of the Scottish Queen.
If the great fight was at last to be fought triumphantly through, it was
obvious that England was to depend upon Englishmen of all ranks and
classes, upon her prudent and far-seeing statesmen, upon her nobles and
her adventurers, on her Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman blood ever mounting
against, oppression, on Howard and Essex, Drake and Williams, Norris, and
Willoughby, upon high-born magnates, plebeian captains, London merchants,
upon yeomen whose limbs were made in England, and upon Hollanders and
Zeelanders whose fearless mariners were to swarm to the protection of her
coasts, quite as much in that year of anxious expectation as upon the