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illness, which the weight of his responsibilities must frequently aggravate.
    And always Spanish King Philip circled like a waiting shark, preparing to make another attack. A year had passed since his great invading fleet had swept up the Channel, and although our recent expedition had done a little damage to his remaining navy, he had almost limitless resources drawn from the gold and silver mines of the New World. It would not take him long to rebuild and re-equip his ships. What then? The state of England was like a three-legged stool, held steady by those three mighty figures. If one failed, would the whole country collapse into impotence and ruin?
    As usual when I walked across London, I ignored most of the street vendors, but when a pamphlet seller cried, ‘My Lord Essex’s tale of heroism! Read all about My Lord’s adventures against the stinking Spanish! Only a farthing!’
    He waved a crudely printed pamphlet in my face. On my journey back from Plymouth I had heard that Essex was putting about stories of his fictitious heroic exploits during the Portuguese expedition. It might be wise to see what this latest version said, before I saw Walsingham and presented my reports. Though I begrudged the farthing.
    Walking on towards Tower Ward, I quickly read the pamphlet, growing more annoyed with every sentence.
    Something I found inexplicable, as one who had been in Essex’s company for most of the Portuguese venture, was the heroic light in which he was now viewed by the Court and populace alike. He had taken advantage of his early return, before the rest of us, to spread about his story of the expedition, in which his achievements and gallant behaviour outshone the bumbling mistakes of everyone else. Within days of his return, his friends and followers were publishing these encomiums in verse and prose, detailing the mythic (and truly imaginary) deeds of this great man. He had much to gain from such a portrait, as did those who hung about him like leeches. These same eulogies were repeated, in even more extravagant terms, in the present pamphlet. When I had read it, I tore it up in disgust and threw it in the gutter. Yet who would have listened to me? Somehow, he had the skill to persuade people that what was, was not, and that what was not, was.
    I could only hope that Walsingham, who well knew both me and the Earl, would balance my report against these fly-blown attempts to ennoble the absurd follies of this arrogant and often dangerous nobleman.
    On reaching Seething Lane, I entered as usual through the stableyard, from which I could reach both Walsingham’s and Phelippes’s offices by the backstairs. The stable lad Harry was crossing the yard, carrying a bucket of feed for the horses. He set it down with a clatter and seized my hand, pumping it up and down enthusiastically. My position here at Walsingham’s house was always ambiguous. I might be a gentleman, entitled to work on almost equal terms with Thomas Phelippes, but the grooms and stable lads saw me as one of themselves, knowing my affection for the ugly Hector.
    ‘So you survived the mad attempt to put that Portingall fellow on the throne,’ he said. ‘I’m that glad to see you! I never thought it would succeed, even with Drake leading it.’
    I did not try to disillusion him with my harsher opinions of Drake. The piratical captain was a hero amongst the young lads of London, who dreamed of one day sailing the seas with him in search of booty from the Spanish treasure ships. It amused me that he spoke of ‘Portingalls’ as an alien species. Not long ago I would have been labelled as one of them, but it seemed I had earned my right to be regarded as an Englishman, at least here in the stableyard, and that was an opinion worth valuing.
    ‘And here’s Rikki,’ he said, squatting down and fondling the dog’s ears. ‘How are you, old fellow? Has your master been starving you? You’ve lost weight.’
    He gave me an accusing look.
    ‘You should