disposition towards treating for a peace at any price with Spain. It soon
became evident that these rumours were utterly without foundation, but
the other reasons for Elizabeth's anxiety were sufficiently valid.

On the whole, the feeling in favour of England was rapidly gaining
ground. In Holland especially there was general indignation against the
French party. The letters of the deputies occasioned "murmur and mislike"
of most persons, who noted them to contain "more ample report of
ceremonies and compliments than solid argument of comfort."

Sir Edward Stafford, who looked with great penetration into the heart of
the mysterious proceedings at Paris, assured his government that no
better result was to be looked for, "after long dalliance and
entertainment, than either a flat refusal or such a masked embracing of
their cause, as would rather tend to the increasing of their miseries and
confusion than relief for their declining estate." While "reposing upon a
broken reed," they were, he thought, "neglecting other means more
expedient for their necessities."

This was already the universal opinion in Holland. Men now remembered,
with bitterness, the treachery of the Duke of Anjou, which they had been
striving so hard to forget, but which less than two years ago had nearly
proved fatal to the cause of liberty in the Provinces. A committee of the
States had an interview with the Queen's envoy at the Hague; implored her
Majesty through him not to abandon their cause; expressed unlimited
regret for the course which had been pursued, and avowed a determination
"to pluck their heads out of the collar," so soon as the opportunity
should offer.

They stated, moreover, that they had been directed by the assembly to lay
before him the instructions for the envoys to France, and the articles
proposed for the acceptance of the King. The envoy knew his business
better than not to have secretly provided himself with copies of these
documents, which he had already laid before his own government.

He affected, however, to feel hurt that he had been thus kept in
ignorance of papers which he really knew by heart. "After some pretended
quarrel," said he, "for their not acquainting me therewith sooner, I did
accept them, as if I had before neither seen nor heard of them."

This then was the aspect of affairs in the provinces during the absence
of the deputies in France. It is now necessary to shift the scene to that
country.

C