and had persuaded Sir John to offer the
hand of friendship to Leicester, provided it were sure of being accepted.
Yet in this desire to conciliate, the Earl found renewed cause for
violence. "I would have had more regard of my Lord of Buckhurst," he
said, "if the case had been between him and Norris, but I must regard my
own reputation the more that I see others would impair it. You have
deserved little thanks of me, if I must deal plainly, who do equal me
after this sort with him, whose best place is colonel under me, and once
my servant, and preferred by me to all honourable place he had." And thus
were enterprises of great moment, intimately affecting the, safety of
Holland, of England, of all Protestantism, to be suspended between
triumph and ruin, in order that the spleen of one individual--one Queen's
favourite--might be indulged. The contempt of an insolent grandee for a
distinguished commander--himself the son, of a Baron, with a mother the
dear friend of her sovereign--was to endanger the existence of great
commonwealths. Can the influence of the individual, for good or bad, upon
the destinies of the race be doubted, when the characters and conduct of
Elizabeth and Leicester, Burghley and Walsingham, Philip and Parma, are
closely scrutinized and broadly traced throughout the wide range of their
effects?

"And I must now, in your Lordship's sight," continued Leicester, "be made
a counsellor with this companion, who never yet to this day hath done so
much as take knowledge of my mislike of him; no, not to say this much,
which I think would well become his better, that he was sorry, to hear I
had mislike to him, that he desired my suspension till he might either
speak with me, or be charged from me, and if then he were not able to
satisfy me, he would acknowledge his fault, and make me any honest
satisfaction. This manner of dealing would have been no disparagement to
his better. And even so I must think that your Lordship doth me wrong,
knowing what you do, to make so little difference between John Norris, my
man not long since, and now but my colonel under me, as though we were
equals. And I cannot but more than marvel at this your proceeding, when I
remember your promises of friendship, and your opinions resolutely set
down . . . . You were so determined before you went hence, but must have
become wonderfully enamoured of those men's unknown virtues in a few days
of acquaintance, from the alteration that is grow