results which it had already produced. He approved of gaining
time, he said, by fictitious negotiations and by the use of a mercantile
agent; for, no doubt, such a course would prevent the proper succours
from being sent to the Earl of Leicester. If the English would hand over
to him the cautionary towns held by them in Holland and Zeeland, promise
no longer to infest the seas, the Indies, and the Isles, with their
corsairs, and guarantee the complete obedience to their King and
submission to the holy Catholic Church of the rebellious Provinces,
perhaps something might be done with them; but, on the whole, he was
inclined to think that they had been influenced by knavish and deceitful
motives from the beginning. He enjoined it upon Parma, therefore, to
proceed with equal knavery--taking care, however, not to injure his
reputation--and to enter into negotiations wherever occasion might serve,
in order to put the English off their guard and to keep back the
reinforcements so imperatively required by Leicester.

And the reinforcements were indeed kept back. Had Burghley and Croft been
in the pay of Philip II. they could hardly have served him better than
they had been doing by the course pursued. Here then is the explanation
of the shortcomings of the English government towards Leicester and the
States during the memorable spring and summer of 1586. No money, no
soldiers, when most important operations in the field were required. The
first general of the age was to be opposed by a man who had certainly
never gained many laurels as a military chieftain, but who was brave and
confident, and who, had he been faithfully supported by the government
which sent him to the Netherlands, would have had his antagonist at a
great disadvantage. Alexander had scarcely eight thousand effective men.
Famine, pestilence, poverty, mutiny, beset and almost paralyzed him.
Language could not exaggerate the absolute destitution of the country.
Only miracles could save the King's cause, as Farnese repeatedly
observed. A sharp vigorous campaign, heartily carried on against him by
Leicester and Hohenlo, with plenty of troops and money at command, would
have brought the heroic champion of Catholicism to the ground. He was
hemmed in upon all sides; he was cut off from the sea; he stood as it
were in a narrowing circle, surrounded by increasing dangers. His own
veterans, maddened by misery, stung by their King's ingratitude, naked,
starving, ferocious,