ill doubted whether the armaments,
notoriously preparing in Spain and Flanders, were intended against
herself; and that even if such were the case--she still believed in the
possibility of averting the danger by negotiation.

So late as the beginning of May, even the far-seeing and anxious
Walsingham could say, that in England "they were doing nothing but
honouring St. George, of whom the Spanish Armada seemed to be afraid. We
hear," he added, "that they will not be ready to set forward before the
midst of May, but I trust that it will be May come twelve months. The
King of Spain is too old and too sickly to fall to conquer kingdoms. If
he be well counselled, his best course will be to settle his own kingdoms
in his own hands."

And even much later, in the middle of July--when the mask was hardly,
maintained--even then there was no certainty as to the movements of the
Armada; and Walsingham believed, just ten days before the famous fleet
was to appear off Plymouth, that it had dispersed and returned to Spain,
never to re-appear. As to Parma's intentions, they were thought to lie
rather in the direction: of Ostend than of England; and Elizabeth; on the
20th July, was more anxious for that city than for her own kingdom. "Mr.
Ned, I am persuaded," she wrote to Morris, "that if a Spanish fleet
break, the Prince of Parma's enterprise for England will fall to the
ground, and then are you to look to Ostend. Haste your works."

All through the spring and early summer, Stafford, in Paris, was kept in
a state of much perplexity as to the designs of Spain--so contradictory
were the stories circulated--and so bewildering the actions of men known
to be hostile to England. In, the last days of April he intimated it as a
common opinion in Paris, that these naval preparations of Philip were an
elaborate farce; "that the great elephant would bring forth but a
mouse--that the great processions, prayers, and pardons, at Rome, for the
prosperous success of the Armada against England; would be of no effect;
that the King of Spain was laughing in his sleeve at the Pope, that he
could make such a fool of him; and that such an enterprise was a thing
the King never durst think of in deed, but only in show to feed the
world."

Thus, although furnished with minute details as to these, armaments, and
as to the exact designs of Spain against his country, by the ostentatious
statements of the Spanish ambassador in Paris himself, the English,
env