Chapter 4

But although little ostensible business was performed, there was one man who had always an eye to his work. The same servant in plain livery, who had accompanied Secretary Garnier, on his first visit to the English commissioners at Ostend, had now come thither again, accompanied by a fellow-lackey. While the complimentary dinner, offered in the name of the absent Farnese to the Queen's representatives, was going forward, the two menials strayed off together to the downs, for the purpose of rabbit- shooting. The one of them was the same engineer who had already, on the former occasion, taken a complete survey of the fortifications of Ostend; the other was no less a personage than the Duke of Parma himself. The pair now made a thorough examination of the town and its neighbourhood, and, having finished their reconnoitring, made the best of their way back to Bruges. As it was then one of Alexander's favourite objects to reduce the city of Ostend, at the earliest possible moment, it must be allowed that this preliminary conference was not so barren to himself as it was to the commissioners. Philip, when informed of this manoeuvre, was naturally gratified at such masterly duplicity, while he gently rebuked his nephew for exposing his valuable life; and certainly it would have been an inglorious termination to the Duke's splendid career; had he been hanged as a spy within the trenches of Ostend. With the other details of this first diplomatic colloquy Philip was delighted. "I see you understand me thoroughly," he said. "Keep the negotiation alive till my Armada appears, and then carry out my determination, and replant the Catholic religion on the soil of England."

The Queen was not in such high spirits. She was losing her temper very fast, as she became more and more convinced that she had been trifled with. No powers had been yet exhibited, no permanent place of conference fixed upon, and the cessation of arms demanded by her commissioners for England, Spain, and all the Netherlands, was absolutely refused. She desired her commissioners to inform the Duke of Parma that it greatly touched his honour--as both before their coming and afterwards, he had assured her that he had 'comision bastantissima' from his sovereign--to clear himself at once from the imputation of insincerity. "Let not the Duke think," she wrote with her own hand, "that we would so long time endure these many frivolous and unkindly dealings, but that we desire all the world to know our desire of a kingly peace, and that we will endure no more the like, nor any, but will return you from your charge."

Accordingly--by her Majesty's special command--Dr. Dale made another visit to Bruges, to discover, once for all, whether there was a commission from Philip or not; and, if so, to see it with his own eyes. On the 7th May he had an interview with the Duke. After thanking his Highness for the honourable and stately manner in which the conferences had been, inaugurated near Ostend, Dale laid very plainly before him her Majesty's complaints of the tergiversations and equivocations concerning the commission, which had now lasted three months long.

In answer, Alexander made a complimentary harangue; confining himself entirely to the first part of the envoy's address, and assuring him in redundant phraseology, that he should hold himself very guilty before the world, if he had not surrounded the first colloquy between the plenipotentiaries of two such mighty princes, with as much pomp as the circumstances of time and place would allow. After this superfluous rhetoric had been poured forth, he calmly dismissed the topic which Dr. Dale had come all the way from. Ostend to discuss, by carelessly observing that President Richardot would confer with him on the subject of the commission.

"But," said the envoy, "tis no matter of conference or dispute. I desire simply to see the commission."

"Richardot and Champagny shall deal with you in the afternoon," repeated Alexander; and with this reply, the Doctor was fair to be contented.

Dale then alluded to the point of cessation of arms.

"Although," said he, "the Queen might justly require that the cessation should be general for all the King's dominion, yet in order not to stand on precise points, she is content that it should extend no further than to the towns of Flushing; Brief, Ostend, and Bergen-op-Zoom."

"To this he said nothing," wrote the envoy, "and so I went no further."

In the afternoon Dale had conference with Champagny and Richardot. As usual, Champagny was bound hand and foot by the gout, but was as quick- witted and disputatious as ever. Again Dale made an earnest harangue, proving satisfactorily--as if any proof were necessary on such a point-- that a commission from Philip ought to be produced, and that a commission had been promised, over and over again.

After a pause, both the representatives of Parma began to wrangle with the envoy in very insolent fashion. "Richardot is always their mouth- piece," said Dale, "only Champagny choppeth in at every word, and would do so likewise in ours if we would suffer it."

"We shall never have done with these impertinent demands," said the President. "You ought to be satisfied with the Duke's promise of ratification contained in his commission. We confess what you say concerning the former requisitions and promises to be true, but when will you have done? Have we not showed it to Mr. Croft, one of your own colleagues? And if we show it you now, another may come to-morrow, and so we shall never have an end."

"The delays come from yourselves," roundly replied the Englishman, "for you refuse to do what in reason and law you are bound to do. And the more demands the more 'mora aut potius culpa' in you. You, of all men, have least cause to hold such language, who so confidently and even disdainfully answered our demand for the commission, in Mr. Cecil's presence, and promised to show a perfect one at the very first meeting. As for Mr. Comptroller Croft, he came hither without the command of her Majesty and without the knowledge of his colleagues."

Richardot then began to insinuate that, as Croft had come without authority, so--for aught they could tell--might Dale also. But Champagny here interrupted, protested that the president was going too far, and begged him to show the commission without further argument.

Upon this Richardot pulled out the commission from under his gown, and placed it in Dr. Dale's hands!

It was dated 17th April, 1588, signed and sealed by the King, and written in French, and was to the effect, that as there had been differences between her Majesty and himself; as her Majesty had sent ambassadors into the Netherlands, as the Duke of Parma had entered into treaty with her Majesty, therefore the King authorised the Duke to appoint commissioners to treat, conclude, and determine all controversies and misunderstandings, confirmed any such appointments already made, and promised to ratify all that might be done by them in the premises.'

Dr. Dale expressed his satisfaction with the tenor of this document, and begged to be furnished with a copy of it, but his was peremptorily refused. There was then a long conversation--ending, as usual, in nothing--on the two other points, the place for the conferences, namely, and the cessation of arms.

Nest morning Dale, in taking leave of the Duke of Parma, expressed the gratification which he felt, and which her Majesty was sure to feel at the production of the commission. It was now proved, said the envoy, that the King was as earnestly in favour of peace as the Duke was himself.

Dale then returned, well satisfied, to Ostend.

In truth the commission had arrived just in time. "Had I not received it soon enough to produce it then," said Alexander, "the Queen would have broken off the negotiations. So I ordered Richardot, who is quite aware of your Majesty's secret intentions, from which we shall not swerve one jot, to show it privately to Croft, and afterwards to Dr. Dale, but without allowing a copy of it to be taken."

"You have done very well," replied Philip, "but that commission is, on no account, to be used, except for show. You know my mind thoroughly."

Thus three months had been consumed, and at last one indispensable preliminary to any negotiation had, in appearance, been performed. Full powers on both sides had been exhibited. When the Queen of England gave the Earl of Derby and his colleagues commission to treat with the King's envoys, and pledged herself beforehand to, ratify all their proceedings, she meant to perform the promise to which she had affixed her royal name and seal. She could not know that the Spanish monarch was deliberately putting his name to a lie, and chuckling in secret over the credulity of his English sister, who was willing to take his word and his bond. Of a certainty the English were no match for southern diplomacy.

But Elizabeth was now more impatient than ever that the other two preliminaries should be settled, the place of conferences, and the armistice.

"Be plain with the Duke," she wrote to her envoys, "that we have tolerated so many weeks in tarrying a commission, that I will never endure more delays. Let him know he deals with a prince who prizes her honour more than her life: Make yourselves such as stand of your reputations."

Sharp words, but not sharp enough to prevent a further delay of a month; for it was not till the 6th June that the commissioners at last came together at Bourbourg, that "miserable little hole," on the coast between Ostend and Newport, against which Gamier had warned them. And now there was ample opportunity to wrangle at full length on the next preliminary, the cessation of arms. It would be superfluous to follow the altercations step by step--for negotiations there were none--and it is only for the sake of exhibiting at full length the infamy of diplomacy, when diplomacy is unaccompanied by honesty, that we are hanging up this series of pictures at all. Those bloodless encounters between credulity and vanity upon one side, and gigantic fraud on the other, near those very sands of Newport, and in sight of the Northern Ocean, where, before long, the most terrible battles, both by land and sea, which the age had yet witnessed, were to occur, are quite as full of instruction and moral as the most sanguinary combats ever waged.

At last the commissioners exchanged copies of their respective powers. After four months of waiting and wrangling, so much had been achieved-- a show of commissions and a selection of the place for conference. And now began the long debate about the cessation of arms. The English claimed an armistice for the whole dominion of Philip and Elizabeth respectively, during the term of negotiation, and for twenty days after. The Spanish would grant only a temporary truce, terminable at six days' notice, and that only for the four cautionary towns of Holland held by the Queen. Thus Philip would be free to invade England at his leisure out of the obedient Netherlands or Spain. This was inadmissible, of course, but a week was spent at the outset in reducing the terms to writing; and when the Duke's propositions were at last produced in the French tongue, they were refused by the Queen's commissioners, who required that the documents should be in Latin. Great was the triumph of Dr. Dale, when, after another interval, he found their Latin full of barbarisms and blunders, at which a school-boy would have blushed. The King's commissioners, however, while halting in their syntax, had kept steadily to their point.

"You promised a general cessation of aims at our coming," said Dale, at a conference on the 2/12 June, "and now ye have lingered five times twenty days, and nothing done at all. The world may see the delays come of you and not of us, and that ye are not so desirous of peace as ye pretend."

"But as far your invasion of England," stoutly observed the Earl of Derby, "ye shall find it hot coming thither. England was never so ready in any former age,--neither by sea nor by land; but we would show your unreasonableness in proposing a cessation of arms by which ye would bind her Majesty to forbear touching all the Low Countries, and yet leave yourselves at liberty to invade England."

While they were thus disputing, Secretary Gamier rushed into the room, looking very much frightened, and announced that Lord Henry Seymour's fleet of thirty-two ships of war was riding off Gravelines, and that he had sent two men on shore who were now waiting in the ante-chamber.

The men being accordingly admitted, handed letters to the English commissioners from Lord Henry, in which be begged to be informed in what terms they were standing, and whether they needed his assistance or countenance in the cause in which they were engaged. The envoys found his presence very "comfortable," as it showed the Spanish commissioners that her Majesty was so well provided as to make a cessation of arms less necessary to her than it was to the King. They therefore sent their thanks to the Lord Admiral, begging him to cruise for a time off Dunkirk and its neighbourhood, that both their enemies and their friends might have a sight of the English ships.

Great was the panic all along the coast at this unexpected demonstration. The King's commissioners got into their coaches, and drove down to the coast to look at the fleet, and--so soon as they appeared--were received with such a thundering cannonade an hour long, by way of salute, as to convince them, in the opinion of the English envoys, that the Queen had no cause to be afraid of any enemies afloat or ashore.

But these noisy arguments were not much more effective than the interchange of diplomatic broadsides which they had for a moment superseded. The day had gone by for blank cartridges and empty protocols. Nevertheless Lord Henry's harmless thunder was answered, the next day, by a "Quintuplication" in worse Latin than ever, presented to Dr. Dale and his colleagues by Richardot and Champagny, on the subject of the armistice. And then there was a return quintuplication, in choice Latin, by the classic Dale, and then there was a colloquy on the quintuplication, and everything that had been charged, and truly charged, by the English; was now denied by the King's commissioners; and Champagny--more gouty and more irascible than ever--"chopped in" at every word spoken by King's envoys or Queen's, contradicted everybody, repudiated everything said or done by Andrew de Loo, or any of the other secret negotiators during the past year, declared that there never had been a general cessation of arms promised, and that, at any rate, times were now changed, and such an armistice was inadmissible! Then the English answered with equal impatience, and reproached the King's representatives with duplicity and want of faith, and censured them for their unseemly language, and begged to inform Champagny and Richardot that they had not then to deal with such persons as they might formerly have been in the habit of treating withal, but with a "great prince who did justify the honour of her actions," and they confuted the positions now assumed by their opponents with official documents and former statements from those very opponents' lips. And then, after all this diplomatic and rhetorical splutter, the high commissioners recovered their temper and grew more polite, and the King's "envoys excused themselves in a mild, merry manner," for the rudeness of their speeches, and the Queen's envoys accepted their apologies with majestic urbanity, and so they separated for the day in a more friendly manner than they had done the day before.'

"You see to what a scholar's shift we have been driven for want of resolution," said Valentine Dale. "If we should linger here until there should be broken heads, in what case we should be God knoweth. For I can trust Champagny and Richardot no farther than I can see them."

And so the whole month of June passed by; the English commissioners "leaving no stone unturned to get a quiet cessation of arms in general terms," and being constantly foiled; yet perpetually kept in hope that the point would soon be carried. At the same time the signs of the approaching invasion seemed to thicken. "In my opinion," said Dale, "as Phormio spake in matters of wars, it were very requisite that my Lord Harry should be always on this coast, for they will steal out from hence as closely as they can, either to join with the Spanish navy or to land, and they may be very easily scattered, by God's grace." And, with the honest pride of a protocol-maker, he added, "our postulates do trouble the King's commissioners very much, and do bring them to despair."

The excellent Doctor had not even yet discovered that the King's commissioners were delighted with his postulates; and that to have kept them postulating thus five months in succession, while naval and military preparations were slowly bringing forth a great event--which was soon to strike them with as much amazement as if the moon had fallen out of heaven--was one of the most decisive triumphs ever achieved by Spanish diplomacy. But the Doctor thought that his logic had driven the King of Spain to despair.

At the same time he was not insensible to the merits of another and more peremptory style of rhetoric,--"I pray you," said he to Walsingham, "let us hear some arguments from my Lord Harry out of her Majesty's navy now and then. I think they will do more good than any bolt that we can shoot here. If they be met with at their going out, there is no possibility for them to make any resistance, having so few men that can abide the sea; for the rest, as you know, must be sea-sick at first."

But the envoys were completely puzzled. Even at the beginning of July, Sir James Croft was quite convinced of the innocence of the King and the Duke; but Croft was in his dotage. As for Dale, he occasionally opened his eyes, and his ears, but more commonly kept them well closed to the significance of passing events; and consoled himself with his protocols and his classics, and the purity of his own Latin.

"'Tis a very wise saying of Terence," said he, "omnibus nobis ut res dant sese; ita magni aut humiles sumus.' When the King's commissioners hear of the King's navy from Spain, they are in such jollity that they talk loud . . . . . In the mean time--as the wife of Bath sath in Chaucer by her husband, we owe them not a word. If we should die tomorrow; I hope her Majesty will find by our writings that the honour of the cause, in the opinion of the world, must be with her Majesty; and that her commissioners are, neither of such imperfection in their reasons, or so barbarous in language, as they who fail not, almost in every line, of some barbarism not to be borne in a grammar-school, although in subtleness and impudent affirming of untruths and denying of truths, her commissioners are not in any respect to match with Champagny and Richardot, who are doctors in that faculty."

It might perhaps prove a matter of indifference to Elizabeth and to England, when the Queen should be a state-prisoner in Spain and the Inquisition quietly established in her kingdom, whether the world should admit or not, in case of his decease, the superiority of Dr. Dale's logic and latin to those of his antagonists. And even if mankind conceded the best of the argument to the English diplomatists, that diplomacy might seem worthless which could be blind to the colossal falsehoods growing daily before its eyes. Had the commissioners been able to read the secret correspondence between Parma and his master--as we have had the opportunity of doing--they would certainly not have left their homes in February, to be made fools of until July; but would, on their knees, have implored their royal mistress to awake from her fatal delusion before it should be too late. Even without that advantage, it seems incredible that they should have been unable to pierce through the atmosphere of duplicity which surrounded them, and to obtain one clear glimpse of the destruction so, steadily advancing upon England.

For the famous bull of Sixtus V. had now been fulminated. Elizabeth had bean again denounced as a bastard and usurper, and her kingdom had been solemnly conferred upon Philip, with title of defender of the Christian, faith, to have and to hold as tributary and feudatory of Rome. The so- called Queen had usurped the crown contrary to the ancient treaties between the apostolic stool and the kingdom of England, which country, on its reconciliation with the head of the church after the death of St. Thomas of Canterbury, had recognised the necessity of the Pope's. consent in the succession to its throne; she had deserved chastisement for the terrible tortures inflicted by her upon English Catholics and God's own saints; and it was declared an act of virtue, to be repaid with plenary indulgence and forgiveness of all sins, to lay violent hands on the usurper, and deliver her into the hands of the Catholic party. And of the holy league against the usurper, Philip was appointed the head, and Alexander of Parma chief commander. This document was published in large numbers in Antwerp in the English tongue.

The pamphlet of Dr. Allen, just named Cardinal, was also translated in the same city, under the direction of the Duke of Parma, in-order to be distributed throughout England, on the arrival in that kingdom of the Catholic troops. The well-known 'Admonition to the Nobility and People of England and Ireland' accused the Queen of every crime and vice which can pollute humanity; and was filled with foul details unfit for the public eye in these more decent days.

So soon as the intelligence of these publications reached England, the Queen ordered her commissioners at Bourbourg to take instant cognizance of them, and to obtain a categorical explanation on the subject from Alexander himself: as if an explanation were possible, as if the designs of Sixtus, Philip, and Alexander, could any longer be doubted, and as if the Duke were more likely now than before to make a succinct statement of them for the benefit of her Majesty.

"Having discovered," wrote Elizabeth on the 9th July (N.S.), "that this treaty of peace is entertained only to abuse us, and being many ways given to understand that the preparations which have so long been making, and which now are consummated, both in Spain and the Low Countries, are purposely to be employed against us and our country; finding that, for the furtherance of these exploits, there is ready to be published a vile, slanderous, and blasphemous book, containing as many lies as lines, entitled, 'An Admonition,' &c., and contrived by a lewd born-subject of ours, now become an arrant traitor, named Dr. Allen, lately made, a cardinal at Rome; as also a bull of the Pope, whereof we send you a copy, both very lately brought into those Low Countries, the one whereof is already printed at Antwerp, in a great multitude; in the English tongue, and the other ordered to be printed, only to stir up our subjects, contrary to the laws of God and their allegiance, to join with such foreign purposes as are prepared against us and our realm, to come out of those Low Countries and out of Spain; and as it appears by the said bull that the Duke of Parma is expressly named and chosen by the Pope and the King of Spain to be principal executioner of these intended enterprises, we cannot think it honourable for us to continue longer the treaty of peace with them that, under colour of treaty, arm themselves with all the power they can to a bloody war."