having made his forces stronger than ever he had known in these parts,
besides what is coming out, of Spain, and yet we will presume of good
conditions. It grieveth me to the heart. But I fear you will all smart
for it, and I pray God her Majesty feel it not, if it be His blessed
will. She meaneth well and sincerely to have peace, but God knows that
this is not the way. Well, God Almighty defend us and the realm, and
especially her Majesty. But look for a sharp war, or a miserable peace,
to undo others and ourselves after."

Walsingham, too, was determined not to act as a commissioner. If his
failing health did not serve as an excuse, he should be obliged to
refuse, he said, and so forfeit her Majesty's favour, rather than be
instrumental in bringing about her ruin, and that of his country. Never
for an instant had the Secretary of State faltered in his opposition to
the timid policy of Burghley. Again and again he had detected the
intrigues of the Lord-Treasurer and Sir James Croft, and ridiculed the
"comptroller's peace."

And especially did Walsingham bewail the implicit confidence which the
Queen placed in the sugary words of Alexander, and the fatal parsimony
which caused her to neglect defending herself against Scotland; for he
was as well informed as was Farnese himself of Philip's arrangements with
the Scotch lords, and of the subsidies in men and money by which their
invasion of England was to be made part of the great scheme. "No one
thing," sighed Walsingham, "doth more prognosticate an alteration of this
estate, than that a prince of her Majesty's judgment should neglect, in
respect of a little charges, the stopping of so dangerous a gap . . .
. . The manner of our cold and careless proceeding here, in this time
of peril, maketh me to take no comfort of my recovery of health, for that
I see, unless it shall please God in mercy and miraculously to preserve