ime, not a little
perplexed. It was not so easy to undo all the mischief created by the
Queen's petulance. The "scorpion's sting"--as her Majesty expressed
herself--might be balsamed, but the poison had spread far beyond the
original wound.

"The letters just brought in," wrote Heneage to Burghley, "have well
relieved a most noble and sufficient servant, but I fear they will not
restore the much-repaired wrecks of these far-decayed noble countries
into the same state I found them in. A loose, disordered, and unknit
state needs no shaking, but propping. A subtle and fearful kind of
people--should not be made more distrustful, but assured." He then
expressed annoyance at the fault already found with him, and surely if
ever man had cause to complain of reproof administered him, in quick
succession; for not obeying contradictory directions following upon each
other as quickly, that man was Sir Thomas Heneage. He had been, as he
thought, over cautious in administering the rebuke to the Earl's
arrogance, which he had been expressly sent over to administer but
scarcely had he accomplished his task, with as much delicacy as he could
devise, when he found himself censured;--not for dilatoriness, but for
haste. "Fault I perceive," said he to Burghley, "is found in me, not by
your Lordship, but by some other, that I did not stay proceeding if I
found the public cause might take hurt. It is true I had good warrant for
the manner, the, place, and the persons, but, for the matter none, for
done it must be. Her Majesty's offence must be declared. Yet if I did not
all I possibly could to uphold the cause, and to keep the tottering cause
upon the wheels, I deserve no thanks, but reproof."

Certainly, when the blasts of royal rage are remembered, by which the
envoy had been, as it were, blown out of England into Holland, it is
astonishing to find his actions censured for undue precipitancy. But it
was not the, first, nor was it likely to be the last time, for
comparatively subordinate agents in Elizabeth's government to be,
distressed by, contradictory commands, when the sovereign did not know or
did not chose to make known, her own mind on important occasions. "Well,
my Lord," said plaintive Sir Thomas, "wiser men may serve more pleasingly
and happily, but never shall any serve her Majesty more, faithfully and
heartily. And so I cannot be persuaded her Majesty thinketh; for from
herself I find nothing but most sweet and--gracious, favo