The great fleet was pushed on, and in February Santa Cruz
reported himself almost ready. Santa Cruz and Philip, however, were not
in agreement as to what should be done. Santa Cruz was a fighting
admiral, Philip was not a fighting king. He changed his mind as often as
Elizabeth. Hot fits varied with cold. His last news from England led him
to hope that fighting would not be wanted. The Commissioners were
sitting at Ostend. On one side there were the formal negotiations, in
which the surrender of the towns was not yet treated as an open
question. Had the States been aware that Elizabeth was even in thought
entertaining it, they would have made terms instantly on their own
account and left her alone in the cold. Besides this, there was a second
negotiation underneath, carried on by private agents, in which the
surrender was to be the special condition. These complicated schemings
Parma purposely protracted, to keep Elizabeth in false security. She had
not deliberately intended to give up the towns. At the last moment she
would have probably refused, unless the States themselves consented to
it as part of a general settlement. But she was playing with the idea.
The States, she thought, were too obstinate.
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