ring Sir Philip's
absence, who was in close communication with Lord Montjoy's brother,
Blount, then high in favour of Queen Elizabeth--"whose grandmother she
might be for his age and hers"--and with another brother Christopher
Blount, at that moment in confidential attendance upon Lord Leicester in
Holland. Now Poley, and both the Blounts, were, in reality, Papists, and
in intimate correspondence with the agents of the Queen of Scots, both at
home and abroad, although "forced to fawn upon Leicester, to see if they
might thereby live quiet." They had a secret "alphabet," or cipher, among
them, and protested warmly, that they "honoured the ground whereon Queen
Mary trod better than Leicester with all his generation; and that they
felt bound to serve her who was the only saint living on the earth."

It may be well understood then that the Earl's position was a slippery
one, and that great assumption might be unsafe. "He taketh the matter
upon him," wrote Morgan to the Queen of Scots, "as though he were an
absolute king; but he hath many personages about him of good place out of
England, the best number whereof desire nothing more than his confusion.
Some of them be gone with him to avoid the persecution for religion in
England. My poor advice and labour shall not be wanting to give Leicester
all dishonour, which will fall upon him in the end with shame enough;
though for the present he be very strong." Many of these personages of
good place, and enjoying "charge and credit" with the Earl had very
serious plans in their heads. Some of them meant "for the service of God,
and the advantage of the King of Spain, to further the delivery of some
notable towns in Holland and Zeeland to the said King and his ministers,"
and we are like to hear of these individuals again.

Meantime, the Earl of Leicester was at the Hague. Why was he there? What
was his work? Why had Elizabeth done such violence to her affection as to
part with her favourite-in-chief; and so far overcome her thrift, as to
furnish forth, rather meagrely to be sure, that little army of
Englishmen? Why had the flower of England's chivalry set foot upon that
dark and bloody ground where there seemed so much disaster to encounter,
and so little glory to reap? Why had England thrown herself so heroically
into the breach, just as the last bulwarks were falling which protected
Holland from the overwhelming onslaught of Spain? It was because Holland
was the threshold of Engl