Machiavellian policy, quite on his own account. Nothing came of the
proposition, and the Duke; having transmitted to the King a minute
narrative of, the affair, together with indignant protestations of the
fidelity, which all the world seemed determined to dispute, received
most affectionate replies from that monarch, breathing nothing but
unbounded confidence in his nephew's innocence and devotion.

Such assurances from any other man in the world might have disarmed
suspicion, but Alexander knew his master too well to repose upon his
word, and remembered too bitterly the last hours of Don John of Austria
--whose dying pillow he had soothed, and whose death had been hastened,
as he knew, either by actual poison or by the hardly less fatal venom
of slander--to regain tranquillity as to his own position.

The King was desirous that Pallavicini should be invited over to
Flanders, in order that Alexander, under pretence of listening to his
propositions, might draw from the Genoese all the particulars of his
scheme, and then, at leisure, inflict the punishment which he had
deserved. But insuperable obstacles presented themselves, nor was
Alexander desirous of affording still further pretexts for his
slanderers.

Very soon after this incident--most important as showing the real
situation of various parties, although without any immediate result--
Alexander received a visit in his tent from another stranger. This time
the visitor was an Englishman, one Lieutenant Grimstone, and the object
of his interview with the Duke was not political, but had, a direct
reference to the siege of Bergen. He was accompanied by a countryman
of his own, Redhead by name, a camp-suttler by profession. The two
represented themselves as deserters from the besieged city, and offered,