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Updated: May 19, 2025
He had been with Lord Cobham, and was much disappointed with his reception, for Cobham angry that Grafigni had brought no commission from the King had refused to receive Parma's letter to the Queen, and had expressed annoyance that Bodman should be employed on this mission, having heard that lie was very ill-tempered and passionate.
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.
Grafigni, during one of his visits to the obedient provinces, brought a brace of greyhounds and a couple of horses from England, as a present to Alexander, and he perpetually went about, bragging to every one of important negotiations which he was conducting, and of his intimacy with great personages in both countries. Leicester, on the other hand, was kept in the dark.
Soon afterwards, Bodman was again despatched to England, Grafigni being already there. He was provided with unsigned instructions, according to which he was to say that the Prince, having heard of the Queen's good intentions, had despatched him and Grafigni to her court. They were to listen to any suggestions made by the Queen to her ministers; but they were to do nothing but listen.
It must be confessed, however, that the shuffling and paltering among great men and little men, at that period, forms a somewhat painful subject of contemplation at the present day. Grafigni having some merchandise to convey from Antwerp to London, went early in the year to the Prince of Parma, at Brussels, in order to procure a passport.
The Queen was, no doubt, extremely anxious, and with cause, at the tempest slowly gathering over her head; but the more the dangers thickened, the more was her own official language to those in high places befitting the sovereign of England. She expressed her surprise to Farnese that he had not written to her on the subject of the Grafigni and Bodman affair.
Grafigni, after representing the contrary to his Highness, had now denied in presence of her counsellors having received any commission from the Queen. She also briefly gave the result of Bodman's interviews with Burghley and the others, just narrated. That agent had intimated that Parma would procure authority to treat for peace, if assured that the Queen would lend her ear to any propositions.
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.
Grafigni assured the Prince as the result of his own observation in England that the Queen participated in those pacific sentiments: "You are going to England," replied the Prince, "and you may say to the ministers of her Majesty, that, after my allegiance to my King, I am most favourably and affectionately inclined towards her.
To him Grafigni made no communications, but he once sent him a dish of plums, "which," said the Earl, with superfluous energy, "I will boldly say to you, by the living God, is all that I have ever had since I came into these countries."
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