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Dudley fairly. Sir Thomas Heneage reached Flushing (3 March), and brought letters announcing Elizabeth's displeasure. Leicester replied by sending Sir Thomas Sherley, but the queen did not relent. The quarrel was distracting attention from the objects of the expedition, and Burghley threatened to resign unless Elizabeth gave a temporary ratification of the earl's appointment. At last she yielded so far as to allow him to continue in his office until the council of state could devise such a qualification of his title and authority as might remove her objection without peril to the public welfare. After more negotiations and renewed outbursts of the queen's wrath, the matter ended by the Dutch council of state petitioning Elizabeth to maintain the existing arrangement until they could without peril to themselves effect some change (June 1586). The queen had published her displeasure and had relieved herself of all suspicions of collusion with Leicester. She therefore raised no further difficulties.

Leicester's arrogance soon proved to the States-General that they had made an error. He called his Dutch colleagues 'churls and tinkers,' and was always wrangling with them over money matters. 'Would God I were rid of this place,' he wrote (8 Aug.), and bitterly remarked that the queen had succeeded in 'cracking his credit.' In military matters Leicester was no match for the Spaniards under the Duke of Parma. He succeeded in relieving Grave, and vainly imagined that the enemy were completely ruined by the victory. On 23 April Leicester was reviewing his troops at Utrecht when news was brought him that the Spaniards were marching to recapture Grave. He marched leisurely to Arnheim and Nimeguen with the avowed intention of intercepting the enemy, but as he had no news of their route Leicester never met the attacking force, and Grave was recaptured with ease. To allay the panic which this ludicrous failure produced in Holland, Leicester tried the governor of Grave, Baron Henart, by court-martial, and sent him to the scaffold. Prince Maurice and Sir Philip Sidney seized Axel, and partly retrieved the failing reputation of the English army. Leicester in his despatches blamed everybody for his own neglect of duty, and let Nuys fall to the enemy without raising a finger to protect it. The equipment and temper of part of his army were certainly unsatisfactory, and he had repeatedly to make an example of deserters, but his petty wrangling with Norris and other able colleagues explains much of his failure. In August a gentle letter of reprimand from the queen, the receipt of fresh supplies of money, and the advice of Sir William Pelham, enabled Leicester to improve his position. On 2 Sept. he relieved Berck; the enemy soon retired into winter quarters; the forts about Zutphen and Deventer wore captured by the gallantry of Sir Edward Stanley and Sir William Pelham; and the indecisive campaign was at an end. Leicester came home, making no provision for the command of the army. He had laboured hard for the execution of Mary Queen of Scots, had written letters pressing it on the queen while in Holland, and had hinted when Elizabeth seemed to hesitate that Mary might be privately strangled. He now renewed his importunities, and on 8 Feb. 1586–7 the execution took place.

In January 1586–7 Deventer was betrayed to the Spaniards, and the States-General begged for Leicester's return. The queen refused the demand, but, after directing him to avoid hostilities, sent him over in June to inform the Dutch that they must come to terms with Spain. Parma was besieging Sluys, and declined to entertain negotiations for peace. The English were forced to renew the war, but it was too late to save Sluys, which fell in August. The wretched plight of the English soldiers rendered them nearly useless. Leicester did little or nothing, and he was finally recalled on 10 Nov. 1587. With characteristic love of display he had a medal struck with the motto 'In vitus desero non Gregem sed ingratos.' A party still supported him in Holland, and resisted his successor. On 12 April 1588 a proclamation was issued by the States, announcing his final resignation of his high office (translation in Somers Tracts, 1810, i. 421–4). On Leicester's return home he was welcomed as of old by the queen. She seemed to place increased confidence in him. In May and June 1588, while the country was preparing to resist the Spanish Armada, he was constantly in her company, and received the appointment of 'lieutenant and captain-general of the queen's armies and companies' (24 July). He joined the camp at Tilbury on 26 July, and when the danger was over the queen visited the camp, and rode with him down the lines (9 Aug.) (One of Leicester's latest letters described to Lord Shrewsbury (15 Aug.) Elizabeth's glorious reception by the troops. At the same time she had a patent drawn up constituting him lieutenant-general of England and Ireland, but, yielding to the protests of Burghley, Hatton, and Walsingham, she delayed signing it. Leicester withdrew from London at the end of August. While on the way to Kenilworth he stopped at his house at Cornbury, Oxfordshire, and there