History of the United Netherlands, 1586 part 1 | Page 4

Earl was deeply mortified."
The fourteenth day of this month of March," said he, "Sir Thomas
Heneage delivered a very sharp letter from her Majesty to the council
of estate, besides his message--myself being, present, for so was her
Majesty's pleasure, as he said, and I do think he did but as he was
commanded. How great a grief it must be to an honest heart and a true,
faithful servant, before his own face, to a company of very wise and
grave counsellors, who had conceived a marvellous opinion before of
my credit with her Majesty, to be charged now with a manifest and
wilful contempt! Matter enough to have broken any man's heart, that
looked rather for thanks, as God doth know I did when I first heard of
Mr. Heneage's arrival--I must say to your Lordship, for discharge of my
duty, I can be no fit man to serve here--my disgrace is too
great--protesting to you that since that day I cannot find it in my heart
to come into that place, where, by my own sufferings torn, I was made
to be thought so lewd a person."
He then comforted himself--as he had a right to do--with the reflection
that this disgrace inflicted was more than he deserved, and that such

would be the opinion of those by whom he was surrounded.
"Albeit one thing," he said, "did greatly comfort me, that they all best
knew the wrong was great I had, and that her Majesty was very
wrongfully informed of the state of my cause. I doubt not but they can
and will discharge me, howsoever they shall satisfy her Majesty. And
as I would rather wish for death than justly to deserve her displeasure;
so, good my Lord, this disgrace not coming for any ill service to her,
pray procure me a speedy resolution, that I may go hide me and pray
for her. My heart is broken, though thus far I can quiet myself, that I
know I have done her Majesty as faithful and good service in these
countries as ever she had done her since she was Queen of
England . . . . . Under correction, my good Lord, I have had Halifax
law--to be condemned first and inquired upon after. I pray God that no
man find this measure that I have done, and deserved no worse."
He defended himself--as Davison had already defended him--upon the
necessities of the case.
"I, a poor gentleman," he said, "who have wholly depended upon
herself alone--and now, being commanded to a service of the greatest
importance that ever her Majesty employed any servant in, and finding
the occasion so serving me, and the necessity of time such as would not
permit such delays, flatly seeing that if that opportunity were lost, the
like again for her service and the good of the realm was never, to be
looked for, presuming upon the favour of my prince, as many servants
have done, exceeding somewhat thereupon, rather than breaking any
part of my commission, taking upon me a place whereby I found these
whole countries could be held at her best devotion, without binding her
Majesty to any such matter as she had forbidden to the States before
finding, I say, both the time and opportunity to serve, and no lack but to
trust to her gracious acceptation, I now feel that how good, how
honourable, how profitable soever it be, it is turned to a worse part than
if I had broken all her commissions and commandments, to the greatest
harm, and dishonour, and danger, that may be imagined against her
person, state, and dignity."
He protested, not without a show of reason, that he was like to be worse
punished "for well-doing than any man that had committed a most
heinous or traitorous offence," and he maintained that if he had not
accepted the government, as he had done, "the whole State had been

gone and wholly lost." All this--as we have seen--had already been
stoutly urged by Davison, in the very face of the tempest, but with no
result, except to gain the, enmity of both parties to the quarrel. The
ungrateful Leicester now expressed confidence that the second
go-between would be more adroit than the first had proved. "The
causes why," said he, "Mr. Davison could have told--no man better--but
Mr. Heneage can now tell, who hath sought to the uttermost the bottom
of all things. I will stand to his report, whether glory or vain desire of
title caused me to step one foot forward in the matter. My place was
great enough and high enough before, with much less trouble than by
this, besides the great indignation of her Majesty . . . . . If I had
overslipt the