to urge forward these underhand
negotiations. Some progress had been made; but as no accredited
commissioner arrived from the Prince of Parma, and as Leicester was
continually writing earnest letters against peace, the efforts of these
counsellors had slackened. Bodman found them all, on his arrival, anxious
as he said, "to get their necks out of the matter;" declaring everything
which had been done to be pure matter of accident, entirely without the
concurrence of the Queen, and each seeking to outrival the other in the
good graces of her Majesty. Grafigni informed Bodman, however, that Lord
Cobham was quite to be depended upon in the affair, and would deal with
him privately, while Lord Burghley would correspond with Andrea de Loo at
Antwerp. Moreover, the servant of Comptroller Croft would direct Bodman
as to his course, and would give him daily instructions.

Now it so happened that this servant of Croft, Norris by name, was a
Papist, a man of bad character, and formerly a spy of the Duke of Anjou.
"If your Lordship or myself should use such instruments as this," wrote
Walsingham to Leicester, "I know we should bear no small reproach; but it
is the good hap of hollow and doubtful men to be best thought of." Bodman
thought the lords of the peace-faction and their adherents not
sufficiently strong to oppose the other party with success. He assured
Farnese that almost all the gentlemen and the common people of England
stood ready to risk their fortunes and to go in person to the field to
maintain the cause of the Queen and religious liberty; and that the
chance of peace was desperate unless something should turn the tide, such
as, for example, the defeat of Drake, or an invasion by Philip of Ireland
or Scotland.

As it so happened that Drake was just then engaged in a magnificent
career of victory, sweeping the Spanish Main and startling the nearest
and the most remote possessions of the King with English prowess, his
defeat was not one of the cards to be relied on by the peace-party in the
somewhat deceptive game which they had commenced. Yet, strange to say,
they used, or attempted to use, those splendid triumphs as if they had
been disasters.

Meantime there was an active but very secret correspondence between Lord
Cobham, Lord Burghley, Sir James Croft, and various subordinate
personages in England, on the one side, and Champagny, President
Richardot, La Motte, governor of Gravelines, Andrea de Loo, Grafigni, and