"The rest that was granted by the States, as extraordinary to levy an army, which was 400,000 florins, not pounds, as I hear your Majesty taketh it.

It is forty thousand pounds, and to be paid In March, April, May, and June last," &c.
Leicester to the Queen, 11 Oct.1586.

(S.P.Office MS.)] The military operations were crippled for want of funds, but more fatal than everything else were the secret negotiations for peace.

Subordinate individuals, like Grafigni and De Loo, went up and down, bringing presents out of England for Alexander Farnese, and bragging that Parma and themselves could have peace whenever they liked to make it, and affirming that Leicester's opinions were of no account whatever.
Elizabeth's coldness to the Earl and to the Netherlands was affirmed to be the Prince of Parma's sheet-anchor; while meantime a house was ostentatiously prepared in Brussels by their direction for the reception of an English ambassador, who was every moment expected to arrive.

Under such circumstances it was in, vain for the governor-general to protest that the accounts of secret negotiations were false, and quite natural that the States should lose their confidence in the Queen.