Owing, perhaps, to the exertions of Waterhouse, or possibly to some qualm of conscience in her Majesty as to the ruin which was overtaking her faithful servant's private estate, positive orders were sent to the Irish Government to treat him with more consideration, and to give him a commission as Governor of Ulster with authority quite equal to that of a President in other provinces. Fitzwilliam was also told to give out that the expedition was not intended against the natives, but against the usurping Scots. In practice, of course, no such distinction was or could be observed. Fitzwilliam hastened to assure Walsingham, who had just become Secretary of State, that the rumour of his opposition to Essex was mere slander, and that he would embrace his enterprise heartily.[271] [Sidenote: The Queen will not make Essex Lord Deputy.] The English Ministry saw clearly enough that nothing could be made of the Ulster expedition without great expense. This the Queen was most unwilling to incur, and some proposed to make Essex Lord Deputy as the easiest way out of the difficulty. He was, they said, 'painful in watch, in travail, in wet and dry, in hunger and cold, and frank of his own purse in her Majesty's service.' The Queen's honour would be saved by withdrawing in this way from a hopeless enterprise, and the Earl's feelings would be spared by promoting instead of recalling him. But Elizabeth refused positively to make anyone Deputy who had a landed estate in Ireland, and the reason was good whether suggested by Leicester or not. Sir F. Knollys feared that if the Queen would neither make the Earl Deputy, nor take the enterprise into her own hands, the unlucky adventurer would be undone, to her Majesty's great danger and dishonour. Lady Essex's father might have been well pleased to have her living in Dublin, but if Leicester, as is exceedingly probable, was already her lover, opposition would not be wanting. 'Yet all men,' says Knollys significantly, 'outwardly do seem to favour my Lord Essex and his enterprise.'[272] [Sidenote: Essex is made Governor of Ulster,] Essex became Governor of Ulster, and in less than a month longed to be rid of an office which he could not fill with credit. He was very willing to be Lord Deputy, for that might give him the means of reducing Ulster, but he feared that no Deputy would ever brook a separate governor for the Northern province. [Sidenote: but can do nothing.]