the Earl of Derby and his colleagues commission to treat with the King's
envoys, and pledged herself beforehand to, ratify all their proceedings,
she meant to perform the promise to which she had affixed her royal name
and seal. She could not know that the Spanish monarch was deliberately
putting his name to a lie, and chuckling in secret over the credulity of
his English sister, who was willing to take his word and his bond. Of a
certainty the English were no match for southern diplomacy.

But Elizabeth was now more impatient than ever that the other two
preliminaries should be settled, the place of conferences, and the
armistice.

"Be plain with the Duke," she wrote to her envoys, "that we have
tolerated so many weeks in tarrying a commission, that I will never
endure more delays. Let him know he deals with a prince who prizes her
honour more than her life: Make yourselves such as stand of your
reputations."

Sharp words, but not sharp enough to prevent a further delay of a month;
for it was not till the 6th June that the commissioners at last came
together at Bourbourg, that "miserable little hole," on the coast between
Ostend and Newport, against which Gamier had warned them. And now there
was ample opportunity to wrangle at full length on the next preliminary,
the cessation of arms. It would be superfluous to follow the
altercations step by step--for negotiations there were none--and it is
only for the sake of exhibiting at full length the infamy of diplomacy,
when diplomacy is unaccompanied by honesty, that we are hanging up this
series of pictures at all. Those bloodless encounters between credulity
and vanity upon one side, and gigantic fraud on the other, near those
very sands of Newport, and in sight of the Northern Ocean, where, before