did not seem of more hopeful growth.

Leicester had been determined and consistent in this great enterprize
from the beginning. He felt intensely the importance of the crisis. He
saw that the time had come for swift and uncompromising action, and the
impatience with which he bore the fetters imposed upon him may be easily
conceived.

"The cause is such," he wrote to Walsingham, "that I had as lief be dead
as be in the case I shall be in if this restraint hold for taking the
oath there, or if some more authority be not granted than I see her
Majesty would I should have. I trust you all will hold hard for this, or
else banish me England withal. I have sent you the books to be signed by
her Majesty. I beseech you return them with all haste, for I get no
money till they be under seal."

But her Majesty would not put them under her seal, much to the
favourite's discomfiture.

"Your letter yieldeth but cold answer," he wrote, two days afterwards.
"Above all things yet that her Majesty doth stick at, I marvel most at
her refusal to sign my book of assurance; for there passeth nothing in
the earth against her profit by that act, nor any good to me but to
satisfy the creditors, who were more scrupulous than needs. I did
complain to her of those who did refuse to lend me money, and she was
greatly offended with them. But if her Majesty were to stay this, if I
were half seas over, I must of necessity come back again, for I may not
go without money. I beseech, if the matter be refused by her, bestow a
post on me to Harwich. I lie this night at Sir John Peters', and but for
this doubt I had been to-morrow at Harwich. I pray God make you all that