"Moreover," said the Secretary of State, "although your arguments are full of piety, and your examples from Holy Writ very apt, I must tell you the plain truth. Great princes are not always so zealous in religious matters as they might be. Political transactions move them more deeply, and they depend too much on worldly things. However there is no longer much danger, for our envoys will return from Flanders in a few days."
"But," asked a deputy, "if the Spanish fleet does not succeed in its enterprise, will the peace-negotiations be renewed?"
"By no means," said Walsingham; "the Queen can never do that, consistently with her honour. They have scattered infamous libels against her—so scandalous, that you would be astounded should you read them. Arguments drawn from honour are more valid with princes than any other."
He alluded to the point in their memorial touching the free exercise of the reformed religion in the Provinces.
"'Tis well and piously said," he observed; "but princes and great lords are not always very earnest in such matters. I think that her Majesty's envoys will not press for the free exercise of the religion so very much; not more than for two or three years. By that time—should our negotiations succeed—the foreign troops will have evacuated the Netherlands on condition that the States-General shall settle the religious question."
"But," said Daniel de Dieu, one of the deputies, "the majority of the States is Popish."
"Be it so," replied Sir Francis; "nevertheless they will sooner permit the exercise of the reformed religion than take up arms and begin the war anew."
He then alluded to the proposition of the deputies to exclude all religious worship but that of the reformed church—all false religion—as they expressed themselves.
"Her Majesty," said he, "is well disposed to permit some exercise of their religion to the Papists. So far as regards my own feelings, if we were now in the beginning, of the reformation, and the papacy were still entire, I should willingly concede such exercise; but now that the Papacy has been overthrown, I think it would not be safe to give such permission. When we were disputing, at the time of the pacification of Ghent, whether the Popish religion should be partially permitted, the Prince of Orange was of the affirmative opinion; but I, who was then at Antwerp, entertained the contrary conviction."
"But," said one of the deputies—pleased to find that Walsingham was more of their way of thinking on religious toleration than the great Prince of Orange had been, or than Maurice and Barneveld then were—"but her Majesty will, we hope, follow the advice of her good and faithful counsellors."