It were too long to tell of all the skirmishes, the marchings and countermarchings, the captures and surprises, wherein my grandfather bore his part for three years from that time. But in July 1593, the King professed himself of the Catholic faith, to the joy of the greater part of the nation, and the confusion of his enemies. City after city opened its gates to him; by the end of that year France had peace, and many of the English gentlemen that had fought for the King returned to their own country, my grandfather being among them. He told me that the main cause of his return was Queen Elizabeth's displeasure with Henry for that he had changed his religion, but it is known that the Queen nevertheless withdrew not her support from him, and methinks my grandfather himself no longer held him in the same degree of respect, for he abhorred a turncoat, and I know that he grieved because, as all men knew, the King forsook his faith without sincerity and for the mere bauble of a crown. My father was used to remind him how Naaman the Syrian bowed himself in the house of Rimmon, and is held of many to be blameless; and how King Henry did in truth by his conversion compose the French nation to peace and order; whereat my grandfather would cry, "How now! would you do ill that good may come?" and so put him to silence.
However, having returned to London, my grandfather obtained by the interest of a noble friend the promise of a place among the Queen's Guard. Yet it was some while ere he entered into this honourable office, for being sent by my Lord Burghley upon an errand to Flanders, he was led by chance, or more truly by the hand of Providence, to employ his sword in defence of the liberties of the commonweal there. The Provinces had been struggling for five and twenty years against the oppression of the Spanish King and his minions, of whom the Duke of Alva in especial left a name for iron sternness and cruelty. Like as in the case of King Henry of Navarre, Queen Elizabeth lent aid to the suffering folk; many of her chiefest men were captains in their army, and became governors of their towns, and did many right honest and praiseworthy deeds in their behoof. And among the stories that my grandfather told me, none pleased me better than this that now follows, wherein he relates a quaint and pleasant conceit that he devised for the undoing of a traitor.
THE THIRD PART
CHRISTOPHER RUDD'S ADVENTURE IN THE
LOW COUNTRIES, AND HIS QUAINT
DEVICE OF THE SILVER SHOT
headpiece to Third Part
I
I could wish that I had been born somewhat earlier into the world, for then I had had no cause, in these my latter years, to feel shame for my country, nor to look into the future with any disquietude. This our England stood upon a pinnacle of renown and majesty that year when the Spaniards' Armada was shattered by the winds of God and the shot of Sir Francis Drake. Queen Elizabeth went down to her grave in a blaze of glory; but in the reign of her successor the lustre of our name was dimmed. At this present the sky is black with clouds, and there is rumbling and muttering of thunder. Pray God our Ship of State may weather the imminent storm!
Chiefly I could wish to have been of an elder generation, because then I might have had a full share in that great struggle for liberty which our neighbours of the Low Countries long time maintained with stout heart against the Spaniard. I did, indeed, ply my sword in their behoof, among the voluntaries whom our queen suffered to engage in that service; but I came late to it, when a great part of the journey work was already done. Prince William, named the Silent, had fallen to the assassin's knife while I was yet at school; and by the hand of that pattern of all princely virtues the foundations of the Republic had been well and truly laid. Yet had he bequeathed a vast heritage of toil to his son, Prince Maurice, whom I must hold to be the peerless instructor of this age in the art of war. By his side I dealt many a dint for freedom, and it would need a month of talking so much as to tell over the sieges and stratagems, the ambuscades and sharp encounters, wherein I bore my part with that worthy prince. But at the very beginning of my service there befell me a noteworthy adventure which I look back upon with a certain joyous contentment; and that I will relate, craving your patience.
In the autumn of 1593 I was sent for one day to wait upon my Lord Burghley at Cecil House in the Strand. I found him exceeding sick in body, with a look of death upon his aged countenance; but his mind was sound and firm as ever, and he laid his commands upon me with all his wonted clearness and precision.