For, in Elizabeth's court, mediocrity was not always golden, nor was it usually the loftiest mountains that the lightnings smote.

The Earl was deceived by his royal mistress, kept in the dark as to important transactions, left to provide for his famishing' soldiers as he best might; but the Queen at that moment, though angry, was not disposed, to trample upon him.

Now that his heart was known to be broken, and his sole object in life to be retirement to remote regions--India or elsewhere--there to languish out the brief remainder of his days in prayers for Elizabeth's happiness, Elizabeth was not inclined very bitterly to upbraid him.

She had too recently been employing herself in binding up his broken heart, and pouring balm into the "scorpion's sting," to be willing so soon to deprive him of those alleviations.
Her tone--was however no longer benignant, and her directions were extremely peremptory.

On the 1st of April she had congratulated Leicester, Heneage, the States, and all the world, that her secret commands had been staid, and that the ruin which would have followed, had, those decrees been executed according to her first violent wish, was fortunately averted.