Walsingham and the Lord Treasurer had been right in so earnestly remonstrating with him on his previous silence.
"She read your letter," said Burghley, "and, in very truth, I found her princely heart touched with favourable interpretation of your actions; affirming them to be only offensive to her, in that she was not made privy to them; not now misliking that you had the authority." Such, at fifty-three, was Elizabeth Tudor.

A gentle whisper of idolatry from the lips of the man she loved, and she was wax in his hands.

Where now were the vehement protestations of horror that her public declaration of principles and motives had been set at nought?
Where now were her vociferous denunciations of the States, her shrill invectives against Leicester, her big oaths, and all the 'hysterica passio,' which had sent poor Lord Burghley to bed with the gout, and inspired the soul of Walsingham with dismal forebodings?
Her anger had dissolved into a shower of tenderness, and if her parsimony still remained it was because that could only vanish when she too should cease to be.
And thus, for a moment, the grave diplomatic difference between the crown of England and their high mightinesses the United States--upon the solution of which the fate of Christendom was hanging--seemed to shrink to the dimensions of a lovers' quarrel.

Was it not strange that the letter had been so long delayed?
Davison had exhausted argument in defence of the acceptance by the Earl of the authority conferred by the States and had gained nothing by his eloquence, save abuse from the Queen, and acrimonious censure from the Earl.

He had deeply offended both by pleading the cause of the erring favourite, when the favourite should have spoken for himself.