And thus patiently did Walsingham pick his course, plummet in hand, through the mists and along the quicksands, and faithfully did he hold out signals to his comrade embarked on the same dangerous voyage. As for the Earl himself, he was shocked at the short-sighted policy of his mistress, mortified by the neglect to which he was exposed, disappointed in his ambitious schemes. Vehemently and judiciously he insisted upon the necessity of vigorous field operations throughout the spring and summer thus frittered away in frivolous negotiations. He was for peace, if a lasting and honourable peace could be procured; but he insisted that the only road to such a result was through a "good sharp war." His troops were mutinous for want of pay, so that he had been obliged to have a few of them executed, although he protested that he would rather have "gone a thousand miles a-foot" than have done so; and he was crippled by his government at exactly the time when his great adversary's condition was most forlorn. Was it strange that the proud Earl should be fretting his heart away when such golden chances were eluding his grasp? He would "creep upon the ground," he said, as far as his hands and knees would carry him, to have a good peace for her Majesty, but his care was to have a peace indeed, and not a show of it. It was the cue of Holland and England to fight before they could expect to deal upon favourable terms with their enemy. He was quick enough to see that his false colleagues at home were playing into the enemy's hands. Victory was what was wanted; victory the Earl pledged himself, if properly seconded, to obtain; and, braggart though he was, it is by no means impossible that he might have redeemed his pledge. "If her Majesty will use her advantage," he said, "she shall bring the King, and especially this Prince of Parma, to seek peace in other sort than by way of merchants." Of courage and confidence the governor had no lack. Whether he was capable of outgeneralling Alexander Farnese or no, will be better seen, perhaps, in subsequent chapters; but there is no doubt that he was reasonable enough in thinking, at that juncture, that a hard campaign rather than a "merchant's brokerage" was required to obtain an honourable peace. Lofty, indeed, was the scorn of the aristocratic Leicester that "merchants and pedlars should be paltering in so weighty a cause," and daring to send him a dish of plums when he was hoping half a dozen regiments from the Queen; and a sorry business, in truth, the pedlars had made of it.
Never had there been a more delusive diplomacy, and it was natural that the lieutenant-general abroad and the statesman at home should be sad and indignant, seeing England drifting to utter shipwreck while pursuing that phantom of a pacific haven. Had Walsingham and himself tampered with the enemy, as some counsellors he could name had done, Leicester asserted that the gallows would be thought too good for them; and yet he hoped he might be hanged if the whole Spanish faction in England could procure for the Queen a peace fit for her to accept.
Certainly it was quite impossible for the Spanish-faction to bring about a peace. No human power could bring it about. Even if England had been willing and able to surrender Holland, bound hand and foot, to Philip, even then she could only have obtained a hollow armistice. Philip had sworn in his inmost soul the conquest of England and the dethronement of Elizabeth. His heart was fixed. It was only by the subjugation of England that he hoped to recover the Netherlands. England was to be his stepping-stone to Holland. The invasion was slowly but steadily maturing, and nothing could have diverted the King from his great purpose. In the very midst of all these plots and counterplots, Bodmans and Grafignis, English geldings and Irish greyhounds, dishes of plums and autograph letters of her Majesty and his Highness, the Prince was deliberately discussing all the details of the invasion, which, as it was then hoped, would be ready by the autumn of the year 1586. Although he had sent a special agent to Philip, who was to state by word of mouth that which it was deemed unsafe to write, yet Alexander, perpetually urged by his master, went at last more fully into particulars than he had ever ventured to do before; and this too at the very moment when Elizabeth was most seriously "lending her ear" to negotiation, and most vehemently expressing her wrath at Sir Thomas Heneage for dealing candidly with the States-General.
The Prince observed that when, two or three years before, he had sent his master an account of the coasts, anchoring-places, and harbours of England, he had then expressed the opinion that the conquest of England was an enterprise worthy of the grandeur and Christianity of his Majesty, and not so difficult as to be considered altogether impossible. To make himself absolutely master of the business, however, he had then thought that the King should have no associates in the scheme, and should make no account of the inhabitants of England. Since that time the project had become more difficult of accomplishment, because it was now a stale and common topic of conversation everywhere—in Italy, Germany, and France—so that there could be little doubt that rumours on the subject were daily reaching the ears of Queen Elizabeth and of every one in her kingdom. Hence she had made a strict alliance with Sweden, Denmark, the Protestant princes of Germany, and even with the Turks and the French. Nevertheless, in spite of these obstacles, the King, placing his royal hand to the work, might well accomplish the task; for the favour of the Lord, whose cause it was, would be sure to give him success.
Being so Christian and Catholic a king, Philip naturally desired to extend the area of the holy church, and to come to the relief of so many poor innocent martyrs in England, crying aloud before the Lord for help. Moreover Elizabeth had fomented rebellion in the King's Provinces for a long time secretly, and now, since the fall of Antwerp, and just as Holland and Zeeland were falling into his grasp, openly.
Thus, in secret and in public, she had done the very worst she could do; and it was very clear that the Lord, for her sins; had deprived her of understanding, in order that his Majesty might be the instrument of that chastisement which she so fully deserved. A monarch of such great prudence, valour, and talent as Philip, could now give all the world to understand that those who dared to lose a just and decorous respect for him, as this good lady had done, would receive such chastisement as royal power guided by prudent counsel could inflict. Parma assured his sovereign, that, if the conquest of England were effected, that of the Netherlands would be finished with much facility and brevity; but that otherwise, on account of the situation, strength and obstinacy of those people, it would be a very long, perilous, and at best doubtful business.
"Three points," he said, "were most vital to the invasion of England—secrecy, maintenance of the civil war in France, and judicious arrangement of matters in the Provinces."
The French, if unoccupied at home, would be sure to make the enterprise so dangerous as to become almost impossible; for it might be laid down as a general maxim that that nation, jealous of Philip's power, had always done and would always do what it could to counteract his purposes.
With regard to the Netherlands, it would be desirable to leave a good number of troops in those countries—at least as many as were then stationed there—besides the garrisons, and also to hold many German and Swiss mercenaries in "wartgeld." It would be further desirable that Alexander should take most of the personages of quality and sufficiency in the Provinces over with him to England, in order that they should not make mischief in his absence.
With regard to the point of secrecy, that was, in Parma's opinion, the most important of all. All leagues must become more or less public, particularly those contrived at or with Rome. Such being the case, the Queen of England would be well aware of the Spanish projects, and, besides her militia at home, would levy German infantry and cavalry, and provide plenty of vessels, relying therein upon Holland and Zeeland, where ships and sailors were in such abundance. Moreover, the English and the Netherlanders knew the coasts, currents, tides, shallows, quicksands, ports, better than did the pilots of any fleets that the King could send thither. Thus, having his back assured, the enemy would meet them in front at a disadvantage. Although, notwithstanding this inequality, the enemy would be beaten, yet if the engagement should be warm, the Spaniards would receive an amount of damage which could not fail to be inconvenient, particularly as they would be obliged to land their troops, and to give battle to those who would be watching their landing. Moreover the English would be provided with cavalry, of which his Majesty's forces would have very little, on account of the difficulty of its embarkation.