The rebel cruisers swarmed in the Scheldt, from, Flushing almost to Antwerp, so that it was quite impossible for Parma's forces to venture forth at all; and it also seemed hopeless to hazard putting to sea from Sluys.

At the same, time he had appointed his, commissioners to treat with the English envoys already named by the Queen.

There had been much delay in the arrival of those deputies, on account of the noise raised by Barneveld and his followers; but Burghley was now sanguine that the exposure of what he called the Advocate's seditious, false, and perverse proceedings, would enable Leicester to procure the consent of the States to a universal peace.
And thus, with these parallel schemes of invasion and negotiation, spring; summer, and autumn, had worn away.

Santa Cruz was still with his fleet in Lisbon, Cadiz, and the Azores; and Parma was in Brussels, when Philip fondly imagined him established in Greenwich Palace.

When made aware of his master's preposterous expectations, Alexander would have been perhaps amused, had he not been half beside himself with indignation.