handed for revision to a Committee of
Members. On the Committee his name stands first. His disgrace had left
him sufficiently prominent to be thought worth libelling by Robert
Parsons the Jesuit, 'Andraeus Philopater.' Parsons described him as
keeping a school of atheism, wherein the Old and New Testaments were
jested at, and scholars taught to spell God backwards.

[Sidenote: _Irish Policy._]

In the shade though he was, he would abide no wrong to his official
authority. In February, 1592, before his disgrace, he had found leisure
in the midst of the preparations for his expedition to reprove the Devon
justices of the peace for the application of their 'foreign authority'
to compel his tinners to contribute to the repair of a private bridge.
Still under a cloud in May, 1594, he was not afraid to protest highly to
Lord Keeper Egerton against an encroachment by the Star Chamber on his
Stannary jurisdiction. A year later the county magistrates do not seem
to have thought his continuing obscuration exonerated them from
defending themselves against the charge of 'intermeddling' with his
prerogatives. He regarded himself as holding a commission to watch and
warn against all danger by sea. In June, 1594, he was informing the Lord
High Admiral that Spain had an armed fleet in the Breton ports. He
prayed the Admiral to ask her Majesty's leave that his 'poor kinsman'
might serve as a volunteer soldier or mariner in an attack upon it.
Apparently he had his wish and was allowed to embark. But his advice had
been followed tardily. He writes from the Foreland on August 25, that
the season was too late. The only hope was that the enemy might approach
the Thames. When he was not at sea he was contracting for the
victualling and equipment of ships of war. That was among his frequent
occupations. At all periods he had his eye upon Ireland. Neither royal
coldness nor bodily ailments could force him to be silent on Irish
affairs. In May, 1593, sick, and 'tumbled down the hill by every
practice,' he would go on exclaiming against the administrative blunders
which had let England be baffled and 'beggared' by a nation without
fortifications, and, for long, without effective arms. 'The beggarly,
the accursed kingdom,' had cost a million not many years since. 'A
better kingdom might have been purchased at a less price, and that same
defended with as many pence, if good order had been taken.' Though he
was not admitted to the Queen's presence