rmoniously against the common
enemy of Christendom. Under such circumstances it may well be imagined
that there was cause on Leicester's part for deep mortification at the
tragical turn which the Queen's temper seemed to be taking.

"I know not," he said, "how her Majesty doth mean to dispose of me. It
hath grieved me more than I can express that for faithful and good
service she should so deeply conceive against me. God knows with what
mind I have served her Highness, and perhaps some others might have
failed. Yet she is neither tied one jot by covenant or promise by me in
any way, nor at one groat the more charges, but myself two or three
thousand pounds sterling more than now is like to be well spent. I will
desire no partial speech in my favour. If my doings be ill for her
Majesty and the realm, let me feel the smart of it. The cause is now well
forward; let not her majesty suffer it to quail. If you will have it
proceed to good effect, send away Sir William Pelham with all the haste
you can. I mean not to complain, but with so weighty a cause as this is,
few men have been so weakly assisted. Her Majesty hath far better choice
for my place, and with any that may succeed me let Sir William Pelham be
first that may come. I speak from my soul for her Majesty's service. I am
for myself upon an hour's warning to obey her good pleasure."

Thus far the Earl had maintained his dignity. He had yielded to the
solicitations of the States, and had thereby exceeded his commission, and
gratified his ambition, but he had in no wise forfeited his self-respect.
But--so soon as the first unquestionable intelligence of the passion to
which the Queen had given way at his misdoings reached him--he began to
whimper, The straightforward tone which Davison had adopted in his
interviews with Elizabeth, and the firmness with which he had defended
the cause of his absent friend, at a moment when he had plunged himself
into disgrace, was worthy of applause. He deserved at least a word of
honest thanks.

Ignoble however was the demeanor of the Earl towards the man--for whom he
had but recently been unable to invent eulogies sufficiently warm--so
soon as he conceived the possibility of sacrificing his friend as the
scape-goat for his own fault. An honest schoolboy would have scorned to
leave thus in the lurch a comrade who had been fighting his battles so
honestly.

"How earnest I was," he wrote to the lords of the council, 9th March,
1586,