John Lothrop Motley

“ A shrewd troop, said the Earl, of the first soldiers in Christendom, to be landed some fine morning in England. And he too had heard of the jewelled suits of cramoisy velvet, and all the rest of the finery with which the triumphant Alexander was intending to astonish London. "Get horses enough, and muskets enough in England," exclaimed Leicester, "and then our people will not be beaten, I warrant you, if well led." ”

“ To lie daily, through, thick, and thin, and with every variety of circumstance and detail which; a genius fertile in fiction could suggest, such was the simple rule prescribed by his sovereign. And the rule was implicitly obeyed, and the English sovereign thoroughly deceived. The secret confided only, to the faithful breast of Alexander was religiously kept. Even the Pope was outwitted. His Holiness proposed to, Philip the invasion of England, and offered a million to further the plan. ”

“ Slowly and surely the net, spread by the hands of his own mother, of his own prime minister, of the Duke of Guise, all obeying the command and receiving the stipend of Philip, seemed closing over him. He was without friends, without power to know his friends, if he had them. In his hatred to the Reformation, he had allowed himself to be made the enemy of the only man who could be his friend, or the friend of France. ”

“ The condition of France was becoming more alarming every day, he said. In other words, there was an ever-growing chance of peace for that distracted country. The Queen of England was cementing a strong league between herself, the French King, and the Huguenots; and matters were looking very serious. The impending peace in France would never do, and Philip should prevent it in time, by giving Mucio his money. Unless the French are entangled and at war among themselves, it is quite clear, said Alexander, that we can never think of carrying out our great scheme of invading England. ”

“ Leicester at last could no longer doubt that he was universally odious in the Provinces. Hohenlo, Barneveld, and the rest, who had "championed the country against the peace," were carrying all before them. They had persuaded the people, that the "Queen was but a tickle stay for them," and had inflated young Maurice with vast ideas of his importance, telling him that he was "a natural patriot, the image of his noble father, whose memory was yet great among them, as good reason, dying in their cause, as be had done." The country was bent on a popular government, and on maintaining the war. ”

“ It was war to the knife between her and Rome, declared by Rome itself; nor was there any doubt whatever that the Seminary Priests —seedlings transplanted from foreign nurseries, which were as watered gardens for the growth of treason—were a perpetually organized band of conspirators and assassins, with whom it was hardly an act of excessive barbarity to deal in somewhat summary fashion. Doubtless it would have been a more lofty policy, and a far more intelligent one, to extend towards the Catholics of England, who as a body were loyal to their country, an ample toleration. ”

“ The painful rumours concerning the secret negotiations with Spain, and the design falsely attributed to the English Queen, of selling the chief cities of the republic to Philip as the price of peace, and of reimbursement for expenses incurred by her, increased the general excitement to fever. It was felt by the leaders of the States that as mortal a combat lay before them with the Earl of Leicester, as with the King of Spain, and that it was necessary to strike a severe blow, in order to vindicate their imperilled authority. ”

“ He was not the statesman to deal in policy with Buys, Barneveld, Ortel, Sainte Aldegonde; nor the soldier to measure himself against Alexander Farnese. His administration was a failure; and although he repeatedly hazarded his life, and poured out his wealth in their behalf with an almost unequalled liberality, he could never gain the hearts of the Netherlanders. English valour, English intelligence, English truthfulness, English generosity, were endearing England more and more to Holland. ”

“ France was kept in a state of perpetual civil war; the Netherlands had been converted into a shambles; Ireland was maintained in a state of chronic rebellion; Scotland was torn with internal feuds, regularly organized and paid for by Philip; and its young monarch—"that lying King of Scots," as Leicester called him—was kept in a leash ready to be slipped upon England, when his master should give the word; and England herself was palpitating with the daily expectation of seeing a disciplined horde of brigands let loose upon her shores ”

“ It seemed possible, on the Earl's first advent, that the Provinces might become part and parcel of the English realm. Whether such a consummation would have been desirable or not, is a fruitless enquiry. But it is certain that the selection of such a man as Leicester made that result impossible. Doubtless there were many errors committed by all parties. The Queen was supposed by the Netherlands to be secretly desirous of accepting the sovereignty of the Provinces, provided she were made sure, by the Earl's experience, that they were competent to protect themselves. ”

“ She was seriously and fervently desirous of peace with Spain. On the part of Farnese and his master, there was the most unscrupulous mendacity, while the confiding simplicity and truthfulness of the Queen in these negotiations was almost pathetic. Especially she declared her trust in the loyal and upright character of Parma, in which she was sure of never being disappointed. It is only doing justice to Alexander to say that he was as much deceived by her frankness as she by his falsehood. ”

“ And now, the governor—who, in order to soothe his sovereign and comply with her vehement wishes, had so long misrepresented the state of public feeling—not only confessed that Papists and Protestants, gentle and simple, the States and the people, throughout the republic, were all opposed to any negotiation with the enemy, but lifted up his own voice, and in earnest language expressed his opinion of the Queen's infatuation. ”

“ Sluy's was surrendered at last, and the great enterprise seemed opening from hour to hour. During the months of autumn; upon the very days when those loving messages, mixed with gentle reproaches, were sent by Alexander to Elizabeth, and almost at the self-same hours in which honest Andrew de Loo was getting such head-aches by drinking the Queen's health with Cosimo, and Champagny, the Duke and Philip were interchanging detailed information as to the progress of the invasion. ”

“ He straightway went off to the Duke of Parma, with the letter in his pocket, and translated it to him by candlelight, as he was careful to state, as an important point in his narrative. And Farnese was fuller of fine phrases than ever.
"There is no cause whatever," said he, in a most loving manner, "to doubt my sincerity. Yet the Lord-Treasurer intimates that the most serene Queen is disposed so to do. But if I had not the very best intentions, and desires for peace, I should never have made the first overtures. ”

“ After twenty-seven years of perpetual defeat, during which they had been growing stronger and stronger, the Protestants had met the picked troops of Henry III., under the Due de Joyeuse, near the burgh of Contras. His cousins Conde and Soissons each commanded a wing in the army of the Warnese. "You are both of my family," said Henry, before the engagement, "and the Lord so help me, but I will show you that I am the eldest born." And during that bloody day the white plume was ever tossing where the battle, was fiercest. "I choose to show myself. ”

“ There was trust in the plighted word of a chivalrous soldier like Alexander Farnese, of a most religious and anointed monarch like Philip II. English frankness, playing cards upon the table, was no match for Italian and Spanish legerdemain, a system according to which, to defraud the antagonist by every kind of falsehood and trickery was the legitimate end of diplomacy and statesmanship. It was well known that there were great preparations in Spain, Portugal, and the obedient Netherlands, by land and sea. ”

“ Farnese had also been strictly enjoined to deal gently with the English, after the conquest, so that they would have cause to love their new master. His troops were not to forget discipline after victory. There was to be no pillage or rapine. The Catholics were to be handsomely rewarded and all the inhabitants were to be treated with so much indulgence that, instead of abhorring Parma and his soldiers, they would conceive a strong affection for them all, as the source of so many benefits. Again the Duke was warmly commended for the skill with which he had handled the peace negotiation. ”

“ Yet, after minute examination of the record, public and private, neither Wilkes nor Buckhurst can be found guilty of treachery or animosity towards him, but are proved to have been governed, in all their conduct, by a strong sense of duty to their sovereign, the Netherlands, and Leicester himself.
To Sir John Norris, it must be allowed, that he was never fickle, for he had always entertained for that distinguished general an honest, unswerving, and infinite hatred, which was not susceptible of increase or diminution by any act or word. ”

“ When, in the preliminaries to the negotiations of 1587, therefore, it was urged on the part of Spain, that the Queen was demanding a concession of religious liberty from Philip to the Netherlanders which she refused to English heretics, and that he only claimed the same right of dictating a creed to his subjects which she exercised in regard to her own, Lord Burghley replied that the statement was correct. The Queen permitted— it was true—no man to profess any religion but the one which she professed. ”

“ The English will be asking for damages for money, spent in assisting my rebels; your commissioners will contend that damages are rather due to me. Thus, and in other ways, time will be agent. Your own envoys are not to know the secret any more than the English themselves. I tell it to you only. Thus you will proceed with the negotiations, now, yielding on one point, and now insisting on another, but directing all to the same object—to gain time while proceeding with the preparation for the invasion, according to the plan already agreed upon. ”

“ The matter was instantly laid before the States of Holland by the magistracy of Leyden, and seemed of the gravest moment. In the beginning of the year, the fatal treason of York and Stanley had implanted a deep suspicion of Leicester in the hearts of almost all the Netherlanders, which could not be eradicated. ”

“ The King calculated that by the middle of September Alexander would have 30,000 men in the Netherlands ready for embarcation.—Marquis Santa Cruz was announced as nearly ready to, sail for the English channel with 22,000 more, among whom were to be 16,000 seasoned Spanish infantry. The Marquis was then to extend the hand to Parma, and protect that passage to England which the Duke was at once to effect. The danger might be great for so large a fleet to navigate the seas at so late a season of the year; but Philip was sure that God, whose cause it was, would be pleased to give good weather. ”

“ It never entered his head that a royal personage and the trusted counsellors of a great kingdom could be telling the truth in a secret international transaction, and he justified the industry with which his master and himself piled fiction upon fiction, by their utter disbelief in every word which came to them from England. ”

“ 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 ”

“ The fleet would arrive in the English channel by the end of the summer; which would be exactly in conformity with Alexander's ideas. The invasion was to be threefold: from Scotland, under the Scotch earls and their followers, with the money and troops furnished by Philip; from the Netherlands, under Parma; and by the great Spanish armada itself, upon the Isle of Wight. Alexander must recommend himself to God, in whose cause he was acting, and then do his duty; which lay very plain before him. If he ever wished to give his sovereign satisfaction in his life ”

“ He had no intention of concluding a peace on any terms whatever, and therefore could name no conditions; but he quite approved of a continuance of the negotiations. The English, he was convinced, were utterly false on their part, and the King of Denmark's proposition to-mediate was part and parcel of the same general fiction. He was quite sensible of the necessity of giving Mucio the money to prevent a pacification in France, and would send letters of exchange on Agostino Spinola for the 300,000 ducats. Meantime Farnese was to go on steadily with his preparations for the invasion. ”

“ The States were more and more intractable. They knew nearly all the truth with regard to the intercourse between the Queen's government and Farnese, and they suspected more than the truth. The list of English commissioners privately agreed upon between Burghley and De Loo was known to Barneveld, Maurice, and Hohenlo, before it came to the ears of Leicester. In June, Buckhurst had been censured by Elizabeth for opening the peace matter to members of the States, according to her bidding, and in July Leicester was rebuked for exactly the opposite delinquency. ”