human freedom wherever it dared to manifest
itself, with fine phrases of religion and order for ever in his mouth, on
deceiving his friends and enemies alike, as to his nefarious and almost
incredible designs, by means of perpetual and colossal falsehoods; and if
such lessons deserve to be pondered, as a source of instruction and
guidance for every age, then certainly the secret story of the
negotiations by which the wise Queen of England was beguiled, and her
kingdom brought to the verge of ruin, in the spring of 1588, is worthy of
serious attention.

The English commissioners arrived at Ostend. With them came Robert Cecil,
youngest son of Lord-Treasurer Burghley, then twenty-five years of
age.--He had no official capacity, but was sent by his father, that he
might improve his diplomatic talents, and obtain some information as to
the condition of the Netherlands. A slight, crooked, hump-backed young
gentleman, dwarfish in stature, but with a face not irregular in feature,
and thoughtful and subtle in expression, with reddish hair, a thin tawny
beard, and large, pathetic, greenish-coloured eyes, with a mind and
manners already trained to courts and cabinets, and with a disposition
almost ingenuous, as compared to the massive dissimulation with which it
was to be contrasted, and with what was, in aftertimes, to constitute a
portion of his own character, Cecil, young as he was, could not be
considered the least important of the envoys. The Queen, who loved proper
men, called him "her pigmy;" and "although," he observed with whimsical
courtliness, "I may not find fault with the sporting name she gives me,
yet seem I only not to mislike it, because she gives it." The strongest
man among them was Valentine Dale, who had much shrewdness, experience,
and legal learning, but who valued himself, above all things, upon his
Latinity. It was a consolation to him, while his adversaries were
breaking Priscian's head as fast as the Duke, their master, was breaking
his oaths, that his own syntax was as clear as his conscience. The
feeblest commissioner was James-a-Croft, who had already exhibited
himself with very anile characteristics, and whose subsequent
manifestations were to seem like dotage. Doctor Rogers, learned in the
law, as he unquestionably was, had less skill in reading human character,
or in deciphering the physiognomy of a Farnese, while Lord Derby, every
inch a grandee, with Lord Cobham to assist him, was not the man to