h her Majesty, and order taken for her assurance,
your honour can judge what confusion it must of necessity have brought
forth."

At last, when Marnix had become convinced that the toleration would not
arrive "by the very next mail from Spain," and that, in truth, such a
blessing was not to be expected through the post-office at all, he felt
an inward consciousness of the mistake which he had committed. Too
credulously had he inclined his ear to the voice of Parma; too
obstinately had he steeled his heart against Elizabeth, and he was now
the more anxious to clear himself at least from the charges of corruption
so clamorously made against him by Holland and by England. Conscious of
no fault more censurable than credulity and prejudice, feeling that his
long fidelity to the reformed religion ought to be a defence for him
against his calumniators, he was desirous both to clear his own honour,
and to do at least a tardy justice to England. He felt confident that
loyal natures, like those of Davison and his colleagues at home, would
recognize his own loyalty. He trusted, not without cause, to English
honour, and coming to his manor-house of Zoubourg, near Flushing, he
addressed a letter to the ambassador of Elizabeth, in which the strong
desire to vindicate his aspersed integrity is quite manifest.

"I am very joyous," said he, "that coming hither in order to justify
myself against the false and malignant imputations with which they charge
me, I have learned your arrival here on the part of her Majesty, as well
as the soon expected coming of the Earl of Leicester. I see, in truth,
that the Lord God is just, and never abandons his own. I have never
spared myself in the service of my country, and I would have sacrificed
my life, a thousand times, had it been possible, in her cause. Now, I am
receiving for all this a guerdon of blame and calumny, which is cast upon
me in order to cover up faults which have been committed by others in
past days. I hope, however, to come soon to give you welcome, and to
speak more particularly to you of all these things. Meantime demanding my
justification before these gentlemen, who ought to have known me better
than to have added faith to such villanous imputations, I will entreat
you that my definite justification, or condemnation, if I have merited
it, may be reserved till the arrival of Lord Leicester."

This certainly was not the language of a culprit, Nevertheless, his words
did not imm