most secret
one from the Earl himself. Burghley took the precious letter which the
favourite had addressed to his royal mistress, and had occasion to
observe its magical effect. Walsingham and the Lord Treasurer had been
right in so earnestly remonstrating with him on his previous silence.

"She read your letter," said Burghley, "and, in very truth, I found her
princely heart touched with favourable interpretation of your actions;
affirming them to be only offensive to her, in that she was not made
privy to them; not now misliking that you had the authority."

Such, at fifty-three, was Elizabeth Tudor. A gentle whisper of idolatry
from the lips of the man she loved, and she was wax in his hands. Where
now were the vehement protestations of horror that her public declaration
of principles and motives had been set at nought? Where now were her
vociferous denunciations of the States, her shrill invectives against
Leicester, her big oaths, and all the 'hysterica passio,' which had sent
poor Lord Burghley to bed with the gout, and inspired the soul of
Walsingham with dismal forebodings? Her anger had dissolved into a shower
of tenderness, and if her parsimony still remained it was because that
could only vanish when she too should cease to be.

And thus, for a moment, the grave diplomatic difference between the crown
of England and their high mightinesses the United States--upon the
solution of which the fate of Christendom was hanging--seemed to shrink
to the dimensions of a lovers' quarrel. Was it not strange that the
letter had been so long delayed?

Davison had exhausted argument in defence of the acceptance by the Earl
of the authority conferred by the States and had gained nothing by his
eloquence, save abuse from the Queen, and acrimonious censure from the
Earl. He had deeply offended both by pleading the cause of the erring
favourite, when the favourite should have spoken for himself. "Poor Mr.
Davison," said Walsingham, "doth take it very grievously that your
Lordship should conceive so hardly of him as you do. I find the conceit
of your Lordship's disfavour hath greatly dejected him. But at such time
as he arrived her Majesty was so incensed, as all the arguments and
orators in the world could not have wrought any satisfaction."

But now a little billet-doux had done what all the orators in the world
could not do. The arguments remained the same, but the Queen no longer
"misliked that Leicester should have the