She was determined never to separate their cause from her own.
Propositions tending to the security of herself and of her neighbours would always be favourably received.
Parma, on his part, informed his master that there could be no doubt that the Queen and the majority of her council abhorred the war, and that already much had been gained by the fictitious negotiation.
Lord-Treasurer Burghley had been interposing endless delays and difficulties in the way of every measure proposed for the relief of Lord Leicester, and the assistance rendered him had been most lukewarm.
Meantime the Prince had been able, he said, to achieve much success in the field, and the English had done nothing to prevent it.

Since the return of Grafigni and Bodman, however, it was obvious that the English government had disowned these non-commissioned diplomatists.

The whole negotiation and all the negotiators were now discredited, but there was no doubt that there had been a strong desire to treat, and great disappointment at the result.

Grafigni and Andrea de Loo had been publishing everywhere in Antwerp that England would consider the peace as made, so soon as his Majesty should be willing to accept any propositions.
His Majesty, meanwhile, sat in his cabinet, without the slightest intention of making or accepting any propositions save those that were impossible.

He smiled benignantly at his nephew's dissimulation and at the good results which it had already produced.