because of their profound distrust in every word that came from Spanish
or Italian lips; but Leicester, less frank than Buckhurst, preferred to
flatter his sovereign, rather than to tell her unwelcome truths. More
fortunate than Buckhurst, he was rewarded for his flattery by boundless
affection, and promotion to the very highest post in England when the
hour of England's greatest peril had arrived, while the truth-telling
counsellor was consigned to imprisonment and disgrace. When the Queen
complained sharply that the States were mocking her, and that she was
touched in honour at the prospect of not keeping her plighted word to
Farnese, the Earl assured her that the Netherlanders were fast changing
their views; that although the very name of peace had till then been
odious and loathsome, yet now, as coming from her Majesty, they would
accept it with thankful hearts.

The States, or the leading members of that assembly, factious fellows,
pestilent and seditious knaves, were doing their utmost, and were singing
sirens' songs' to enchant and delude the people, but they were fast
losing their influence--so warmly did the country desire to conform to
her Majesty's pleasure. He expatiated, however, upon the difficulties in
his path. The knowledge possessed by the pestilent fellows as to the
actual position of affairs, was very mischievous. It was honey to
Maurice and Hohenlo, he said, that the Queen's secret practices with
Farnese had thus been discovered. Nothing could be more marked than the
jollity with which the ringleaders hailed these preparations for peace-
making, for they now felt certain that the government of their country
had been fixed securely in their own hands. They were canonized, said
the Earl, for their hostility to peace.

Should not this conviction, on the part of men who had so many means of
feeling the popular pulse, have given the Queen's government pause? To