eless one cannot repress one's natural emotions. I believe
firmly that this cruel deed will be the concluding crime of the many
which that Englishwoman has committed, and that our Lord will be pleased
that she shall at last receive the chastisement which she has these many
long years deserved, and which has been reserved till now, for her
greater ruin and confusion."--[Parma to Philip IL, 22 March. 1587. (Arch.
de Simancas, MS.)]--And with this, the Duke proceeded to discuss the all
important and rapidly-preparing invasion of England. Farnese was not the
man to be deceived by the affected reluctance of Elizabeth before Mary's
scaffold, although he was soon to show that he was himself a master in
the science of grimace. For Elizabeth--more than ever disposed to be
friends with Spain and Rome, now that war to the knife was made
inevitable--was wistfully regarding that trap of negotiation, against
which all her best friends were endeavouring to warn her. She was more
ill-natured than ever to the Provinces, she turned her back upon the
Warnese, she affronted Henry III. by affecting to believe in the fable of
his envoy's complicity in the Stafford conspiracy against her life.

"I pray God to open her eyes," said Walsingham, "to see the evident peril
of the course she now holdeth . . . . If it had pleased her to have
followed the advice given her touching the French ambassador, our ships
had been released . . . . but she has taken a very strange course by
writing a very sharp letter unto the French King, which I fear will cause
him to give ear to those of the League, and make himself a party with
them, seeing so little regard had to him here. Your Lordship may see that
our courage doth greatly increase, for that we make no difficulty to fall
out with all the world . . . . I never saw her worse affected to the
poor King of Navarre, and yet doth she seek in no sort to yield
contentment to the French King. If to offend all the world;" repeated the
Secretary bitterly, "be it good cause of government, then can we not do
amiss . . . . I never found her less disposed to take a course of
prevention of the approaching mischiefs toward this realm than at this
present. And to be plain with you, there is none here that hath either
credit or courage to deal effectually with her in any of her great
causes."

Thus distracted by doubts and dangers, at war with her best friends, with
herself, and with all-the world, was Elizabeth during the d