We return to the Netherlands. If ever proof were afforded of the influence of individual character on the destiny of nations and of the world, it certainly was seen in the year 1587. We have lifted the curtain of the secret council-chamber at Greenwich. We have seen all Elizabeth's advisers anxious to arouse her from her fatal credulity, from her almost as fatal parsimony. We have seen Leicester anxious to return, despite all fancied indignities, Walsingham eager to expedite the enterprise, and the Queen remaining obdurate, while month after month of precious time was melting away.

In the Netherlands, meantime, discord and confusion had been increasing every day; and the first great cause of such a dangerous condition of affairs was the absence of the governor. To this all parties agreed. The Leicestrians, the anti-Leicestriana, the Holland party, the Utrecht party, the English counsellors, the English generals, in private letter, in solemn act, all warned the Queen against the lamentable effects resulting from Leicester's inopportune departure and prolonged absence.

On the first outbreak of indignation after the Deventer Affair, Prince Maurice was placed at the head of the general government, with the violent Hohenlo as his lieutenant. The greatest exertions were made by these two nobles and by Barneveld, who guided the whole policy of the party, to secure as many cities as possible to their cause. Magistrates and commandants of garrisons in many towns willingly gave in their adhesion to the new government; others refused; especially Diedrich Sonoy, an officer of distinction, who was governor of Enkhuyzen, and influential throughout North Holland, and who remained a stanch partisan of Leicester. Utrecht, the stronghold of the Leicestrians, was wavering and much torn by faction; Hohenlo and Moeurs had "banquetted and feasted" to such good purpose that they had gained over half the captains of the burgher-guard, and, aided by the branch of nobles, were making a good fight against the Leicester magistracy and the clerical force, enriched by the plunder of the old Catholic livings, who denounced as Papistical and Hispaniolized all who favoured the party of Maurice and Barneveld.

By the end of March the envoys returned from London, and in their company came Lord Buckhurst, as special ambassador from the Queen.

Thomas Sackville, Lord Buckhurst—afterwards Earl of Dorset and lord-treasurer—was then fifty-one years of age. A man of large culture-poet, dramatist, diplomatist-bred to the bar; afterwards elevated to the peerage; endowed with high character and strong intellect; ready with tongue and pen; handsome of person, and with a fascinating address, he was as fit a person to send on a mission of expostulation as any man to be found in England. But the author of the 'Induction to the Mirror for Magistrates' and of 'Gorboduc,' had come to the Netherlands on a forlorn hope. To expostulate in favour of peace with a people who knew that their existence depended on war, to reconcile those to delay who felt that delay was death, and to, heal animosities between men who were enemies from their cradles to their graves, was a difficult mission. But the chief ostensible object of Buckhurst was to smooth the way for Leicester, and, if possible, to persuade the Netherlanders as to the good inclinations of the English government. This was no easy task, for they knew that their envoys had been dismissed, without even a promise of subsidy. They had asked for twelve thousand soldiers and sixty thousand pounds, and had received a volley of abuse. Over and over again, through many months, the Queen fell into a paroxysm of rage when even an allusion was made to the loan of fifty or sixty thousand pounds; and even had she promised the money, it would have given but little satisfaction. As Count Moeurs observed, he would rather see one English rose-noble than a hundred royal promises. So the Hollanders and Zeelanders—not fearing Leicester's influence within their little morsel of a territory—were concentrating their means of resistance upon their own soil, intending to resist Spain, and, if necessary, England, in their last ditch, and with the last drop of their blood.

While such was the condition of affairs, Lord Buckhurst landed at Flushing—four months after the departure of Leicester—on the 24th March, having been tossing three days and nights at sea in a great storm, "miserably sick and in great danger of drowning." Sir William Russell, governor of Flushing, informed him of the progress making by Prince Maurice in virtue of his new authority. He told him that the Zeeland regiment, vacant by Sidney's death, and which the Queen wished bestowed upon Russell himself, had been given to Count Solms; a circumstance which was very sure to exite her Majesty's ire; but that the greater number, and those of the better sort; disliked the alteration of government, and relied entirely upon the Queen. Sainte Aldegonde visited him at Middelburgh, and in a "long discourse" expressed the most friendly sentiments towards England, with free offers of personal service. "Nevertheless," said Buckhurst, cautiously, "I mean to trust the effect, not his words, and so I hope he will not much deceive me. His opinion is that the Earl of Leicester's absence hath chiefly caused this change, and that without his return it will hardly be restored again, but that upon his arrival all these clouds will prove but a summershower."

As a matter of course the new ambassador lifted up his voice, immediately after setting foot on shore, in favour of the starving soldiers of his Queen. "'Tis a most lamentable thing," said he, "to hear the complaints of soldiers and captains for want of pay." . . . . Whole companies made their way into his presence, literally crying aloud for bread. "For Jesus' sake," wrote Buckhurst, "hasten to send relief with all speed, and let such victuallers be appointed as have a conscience not to make themselves rich with the famine of poor soldiers. If her Majesty send not money, and that with speed, for their payment, I am afraid to think what mischief and miseries are like to follow."

Then the ambassador proceeded to the Hague, holding interviews with influential personages in private, and with the States-General in public. Such was the charm of his manner, and so firm the conviction of sincerity and good-will which he inspired, that in the course of a fortnight there was already a sensible change in the aspect of affairs. The enemy, who, at the time of their arrival, had been making bonfires and holding triumphal processions for joy of the great breach between Holland and England, and had been "hoping to swallow them all up, while there were so few left who knew how to act," were already manifesting disappointment.

In a solemn meeting of the States-General with the State-council, Buckhurst addressed the assembly upon the general subject of her Majesty's goodness to the Netherlands. He spoke of the gracious assistance rendered by her, notwithstanding her many special charges for the common cause, and of the mighty enmities which she had incurred for their sake. He sharply censured the Hollanders for their cruelty to men who had shed their blood in their cause, but who were now driven forth from their towns; and left to starve on the highways, and hated for their nation's sake; as if the whole English name deserved to be soiled "for the treachery of two miscreants." He spoke strongly of their demeanour towards the Earl of Leicester, and of the wrongs they had done him, and told them, that, if they were not ready to atone to her Majesty for such injuries, they were not to wonder if their deputies received no better answer at her hands. "She who embraced your cause," he said, "when other mighty princes forsook you, will still stand fast unto you, yea, and increase her goodness, if her present state may suffer it."

After being addressed in this manner the council of state made what Counsellor Clerk called a "very honest, modest, and wise answer;" but the States-General, not being able "so easily to discharge that which had so long boiled within them," deferred their reply until the following day. They then brought forward a deliberate rejoinder, in which they expressed themselves devoted to her Majesty, and, on the whole, well disposed to the Earl. As to the 4th February letter, it had been written "in amaritudine cordis," upon hearing the treasons of York and Stanley, and in accordance with "their custom and liberty used towards all princes, whereby they had long preserved their estate," and in the conviction that the real culprits for all the sins of his Excellency's government were certain "lewd persons who sought to seduce his Lordship, and to cause him to hate the States."

Buckhurst did not think it well to reply, at that moment, on the ground that there had been already crimination and recrimination more than enough, and that "a little bitterness more had rather caused them to determine dangerously than solve for the best."

They then held council together—the envoys and the State-General, as to the amount of troops absolutely necessary—casting up the matter "as pinchingly as possibly might be." And the result was, that 20,000 foot and 2000 horse for garrison work, and an army of 13,000 foot, 5000 horse, and pioneers, for a campaign of five or six months, were pronounced indispensable. This would require all their L240,000 sterling a-year, regular contribution, her Majesty's contingent of L140,000, and an extra sum of L150,000 sterling. Of this sum the States requested her Majesty should furnish two-thirds, while they agreed to furnish the other third, which would make in all L240,000 for the Queen, and L290,000 for the States. As it was understood that the English subsidies were only a loan, secured by mortgage of the cautionary towns, this did not seem very unreasonable, when the intimate blending of England's welfare with that of the Provinces was considered.

Thus it will be observed that Lord Buckhurst—while doing his best to conciliate personal feuds and heart-burnings—had done full justice to the merits of Leicester, and had placed in strongest light the favours conferred by her Majesty.

He then proceeded to Utrecht, where he was received with many demonstrations of respect, "with solemn speeches" from magistrates and burgher-captains, with military processions, and with great banquets, which were, however, conducted with decorum, and at which even Count Moeurs excited universal astonishment by his sobriety. It was difficult, however, for matters to go very smoothly, except upon the surface. What could be more disastrous than for a little commonwealth—a mere handful of people, like these Netherlanders, engaged in mortal combat with the most powerful monarch in the world, and with the first general of the age, within a league of their borders—thus to be deprived of all organized government at a most critical moment, and to be left to wrangle with their allies and among themselves, as to the form of polity to be adopted, while waiting the pleasure of a capricious and despotic woman?

And the very foundation of the authority by which the Spanish yoke had been abjured, the sovereignty offered to Elizabeth, and the government-general conferred on Leicester, was fiercely assailed by the confidential agents of Elizabeth herself. The dispute went into the very depths of the social contract. Already Wilkes, standing up stoutly for the democratic views of the governor, who was so foully to requite him, had assured the English government that the "people were ready to cut the throats" of the Staten-General at any convenient moment. The sovereign people, not the deputies, were alone to be heeded, he said, and although he never informed the world by what process he had learned the deliberate opinion of that sovereign, as there had been no assembly excepting those of the States-General and States-Provincial—he was none the less fully satisfied that the people were all with Leicester, and bitterly opposed to the States.

"For the sovereignty, or supreme authority," said he, through failure of a legitimate prince, belongs to the people, and not to you, gentlemen, who are only servants, ministers, and deputies of the people. You have your commissions or instructions surrounded by limitations—which conditions are so widely different from the power of sovereignty, as the might of the subject is in regard to his prince, or of a servant in, respect to his master. For sovereignty is not limited either as to power or as to time. Still less do you represent the sovereignty; for the people, in giving the general and absolute government to the Earl of Leicester, have conferred upon him at once the exercise of justice, the administration of polity, of naval affairs, of war, and of all the other points of sovereignty. Of these a governor-general is however only the depositary or guardian, until such time as it may please the prince or people to revoke the trust; there being no other in this state who can do this; seeing that it was the people, through the instrumentality of your offices—through you as its servants—conferred on his Excellency, this power, authority, and government. According to the common rule law, therefore, 'quo jure quid statuitur, eodem jure tolli debet.' You having been fully empowered by the provinces and cities, or, to speak more correctly, by your masters and superiors, to confer the government on his Excellency, it follows that you require a like power in order to take it away either in whole or in part. If then you had no commission to curtail his authority, or even that of the state-council, and thus to tread upon and usurp his power as governor general and absolute, there follows of two things one: either you did not well understand what you were doing, nor duly consider how far that power reached, or—much more probably—you have fallen into the sin of disobedience, considering how solemnly you swore allegiance to him.

Thus subtly and ably did Wilkes defend the authority of the man who had deserted his post at a most critical moment, and had compelled the States, by his dereliction, to take the government into their own hands.

For, after all, the whole argument of the English counsellor rested upon a quibble. The people were absolutely sovereign, he said, and had lent that sovereignty to Leicester. How had they made that loan? Through the machinery of the States-General. So long then as the Earl retained the absolute sovereignty, the States were not even representatives of the sovereign people. The sovereign people was merged into one English Earl. The English Earl had retired—indefinitely—to England. Was the sovereign people to wait for months, or years, before it regained its existence? And if not, how was it to reassert its vitality? How but through the agency of the States-General, who—according to Wilkes himself—had been fully empowered by the Provinces and Cities to confer the government on the Earl? The people then, after all, were the provinces and cities. And the States-General were at that moment as much qualified to represent those provinces and cities as they ever had been, and they claimed no more. Wilkes, nor any other of the Leicester party, ever hinted at a general assembly of the people. Universal suffrage was not dreamed of at that day. By the people, he meant, if he meant anything, only that very small fraction of the inhabitants of a country, who, according to the English system, in the reign of Elizabeth, constituted its Commons. He chose, rather from personal and political motives than philosophical ones, to draw a distinction between the people and the States, but it is quite obvious, from the tone of his private communications, that by the 'States' he meant the individuals who happened, for the time-being, to be the deputies of the States of each Province. But it was almost an affectation to accuse those individuals of calling or considering themselves 'sovereigns;' for it was very well known that they sat as envoys, rather than as members of a congress, and were perpetually obliged to recur to their constituents, the States of each Province, for instructions. It was idle, because Buys and Barneveld, and Roorda, and other leaders, exercised the influence due to their talents, patriotism, and experience, to stigmatize them as usurpers of sovereignty, and to hound the rabble upon them as tyrants and mischief-makers. Yet to take this course pleased the Earl of Leicester, who saw no hope for the liberty of the people, unless absolute and unconditional authority over the people, in war, naval affairs, justice, and policy, were placed in his hands. This was the view sustained by the clergy of the Reformed Church, because they found it convenient, through such a theory, and by Leicester's power, to banish Papists, exercise intolerance in matters of religion, sequestrate for their own private uses the property of the Catholic Church, and obtain for their own a political power which was repugnant to the more liberal ideas of the Barneveld party.

The States of Holland—inspired as it were by the memory of that great martyr to religious and political liberty, William the Silent—maintained freedom of conscience.

The Leicester party advocated a different theory on the religious question. They were also determined to omit no effort to make the States odious.

"Seeing their violent courses," said Wilkes to Leicester, "I have not been negligent, as well by solicitations to the ministers, as by my letters to such as have continued constant in affection to your Lordship, to have the people informed of the ungrateful and dangerous proceedings of the States. They have therein travailed with so good effect, as the people are now wonderfully well disposed, and have delivered everywhere in speeches, that if, by the overthwart dealings of the States, her Majesty shall be drawn to stay her succours and goodness to them, and that thereby your Lordship be also discouraged to return, they will cut their throats."

Who the "people" exactly were, that had been so wonderfully well disposed to throat-cutting by the ministers of the Gospel, did not distinctly appear. It was certain, however, that they were the special friends of Leicester, great orators, very pious, and the sovereigns of the country. So much could not be gainsaid.

"Your Lordship would wonder," continued the councillor, "to see the people—who so lately, by the practice of the said States and the accident of Deventer, were notably alienated—so returned to their former devotion towards her Majesty, your Lordship, and our nation."

Wilkes was able moreover to gratify the absent governor-general with the intelligence—of somewhat questionable authenticity however—that the States were very "much terrified with these threats of the people." But Barneveld came down to the council to inquire what member of that body it was who had accused the States of violating the Earl's authority. "Whoever he is," said the Advocate, "let him deliver his mind frankly, and he shall be answered." The man did not seem much terrified by the throat-cutting orations. "It is true," replied Wilkes, perceiving himself to be the person intended, "that you have very injuriously, in many of your proceedings, derogated from and trodden the authority of his Lordship and of this council under your feet."

And then he went into particulars, and discussed, 'more suo,' the constitutional question, in which various Leicestrian counsellors seconded him.

But Barneveld grimly maintained that the States were the sovereigns, and that it was therefore unfit that the governor, who drew his authority from them, should call them to account for their doings. "It was as if the governors in the time of Charles V.," said the Advocate, "should have taxed that Emperor for any action of his done in the government."

In brief, the rugged Barneveld, with threatening voice, and lion port, seemed to impersonate the Staten, and to hold reclaimed sovereignty in his grasp. It seemed difficult to tear it from him again.

"I did what I could," said Wilkes, "to beat them from this humour of their sovereignty, showing that upon that error they had grounded the rest of their wilful absurdities."

Next night, he drew up sixteen articles, showing the disorders of the States, their breach of oaths, and violations of the Earl's authority; and with that commenced a series of papers interchanged by the two parties, in which the topics of the origin of government and the principles of religious freedom were handled with much ability on both sides, but at unmerciful length.

On the religious question, the States-General, led by Barneveld and by Francis Franck, expressed themselves manfully, on various occasions, during the mission of Buckhurst.

"The nobles and cities constituting the States," they said, "have been denounced to Lord Leicester as enemies of religion, by the self-seeking mischief-makers who surround him. Why? Because they had refused the demand of certain preachers to call a general synod, in defiance of the States-General, and to introduce a set of ordinances, with a system of discipline, according to their arbitrary will. This the late Prince of Orange and the States-General had always thought detrimental both to religion and polity. They respected the difference in religious opinions, and leaving all churches in their freedom, they chose to compel no man's conscience—a course which all statesmen, knowing the diversity of human opinions, had considered necessary in order to maintain fraternal harmony."

Such words shine through the prevailing darkness of the religious atmosphere at that epoch, like characters of light. They are beacons in the upward path of mankind. Never before, had so bold and wise a tribute to the genius of the reformation been paid by an organized community. Individuals walking in advance of their age had enunciated such truths, and their voices had seemed to die away, but, at last, a little, struggling, half-developed commonwealth had proclaimed the rights of conscience for all mankind—for Papists and Calvinists, Jews and Anabaptists—because "having a respect for differences in religious opinions, and leaving all churches in their freedom, they chose to compel no man's conscience."

On the constitutional question, the States commenced by an astounding absurdity. "These mischief-makers, moreover," said they, "have not been ashamed to dispute, and to cause the Earl of Leicester to dispute, the lawful constitution of the Provinces; a matter which has not been disputed for eight hundred years."

This was indeed to claim a respectable age for their republic. Eight hundred years took them back to the days of Charlemagne, in whose time it would have been somewhat difficult to detect a germ of their States-General and States-Provincial. That the constitutional government—consisting of nobles and of the vroedschaps of chartered cities—should have been in existence four hundred and seventeen years before the first charter had ever been granted to a city, was a very loose style of argument. Thomas Wilkes, in reply; might as well have traced the English parliament to Hengist and Horsa. "For eight hundred years;" they said, "Holland had been governed by Counts and Countesses, on whom the nobles and cities, as representing the States, had legally conferred sovereignty."

Now the first incorporated city of Holland and Zeeland that ever existed was Middelburg, which received its charter from Count William I. of Holland and Countess Joan of Flanders; in the year 1217. The first Count that had any legal recognized authority was Dirk the First to whom Charles the Simple presented the territory of Holland, by letters-patent, in 922. Yet the States-General, in a solemn and eloquent document, gravely dated their own existence from the year 787, and claimed the regular possession and habitual delegation of sovereignty from that epoch down!

After this fabulous preamble, they proceeded to handle the matter of fact with logical precision. It was absurd, they said, that Mr. Wilkes and Lord Leicester should affect to confound the persons who appeared in the assembly with the States themselves; as if those individuals claimed or exercised sovereignty. Any man who had observed what had been passing during the last fifteen years, knew very well that the supreme authority did not belong to the thirty or forty individuals who came to the meetings . . . . The nobles, by reason of their ancient dignity and splendid possessions, took counsel together over state matters, and then, appearing at the assembly, deliberated with the deputies of the cities. The cities had mainly one form of government—a college of counsellors; or wise men, 40, 32, 28, or 24 in number, of the most respectable out of the whole community. They were chosen for life, and vacancies were supplied by the colleges themselves out of the mass of citizens. These colleges alone governed the city, and that which had been ordained by them was to be obeyed by all the inhabitants—a system against which there had never been any rebellion. The colleges again, united with those of the nobles, represented the whole state, the whole body of the population; and no form of government could be imagined, they said, that could resolve, with a more thorough knowledge of the necessities of the country, or that could execute its resolves with more unity of purpose and decisive authority. To bring the colleges into an assembly could only be done by means of deputies. These deputies, chosen by their colleges, and properly instructed, were sent to the place of meeting. During the war they had always been commissioned to resolve in common on matters regarding the liberty of the land. These deputies, thus assembled, represented, by commission, the States; but they are not, in their own persons, the States; and no one of them had any such pretension. "The people of this country," said the States, "have an aversion to all ambition; and in these disastrous times, wherein nothing but trouble and odium is to be gathered by public employment, these commissions are accounted 'munera necessaria'. . . . This form of government has, by God's favour, protected Holland and Zeeland, during this war, against a powerful foe, without lose of territory, without any popular outbreak, without military mutiny, because all business has been transacted with open doors; and because the very smallest towns are all represented, and vote in the assembly."

In brief, the constitution of the United Provinces was a matter of fact. It was there in good working order, and had, for a generation of mankind, and throughout a tremendous war, done good service. Judged by the principles of reason and justice, it was in the main a wholesome constitution, securing the independence and welfare of the state, and the liberty and property of the individual, as well certainly as did any polity then existing in the world. It seemed more hopeful to abide by it yet a little longer than to adopt the throat-cutting system by the people, recommended by Wilkes and Leicester as an improvement on the old constitution. This was the view of Lord Buckhurst. He felt that threats of throat-cutting were not the best means of smoothing and conciliating, and he had come over to smooth and conciliate.

"To spend the time," said he, "in private brabbles and piques between the States and Lord Leicester, when we ought to prepare an army against the enemy, and to repair the shaken and torn state, is not a good course for her Majesty's service." Letters were continually circulating from hand to hand among the antagonists of the Holland party, written out of England by Leicester, exciting the ill-will of the populace against the organized government. "By such means to bring the States into hatred," said Buckhurst, "and to stir up the people against them; tends to great damage and miserable end. This his Lordship doth full little consider, being the very way to dissolve all government, and so to bring all into confusion, and open the door for the enemy. But oh, how lamentable a thing it is, and how doth my Lord of Leicester abuse her Majesty, making her authority the means to uphold and justify, and under her name to defend and maintain, all his intolerable errors. I thank God that neither his might nor his malice shall deter me from laying open all those things which my conscience knoweth, and which appertaineth to be done for the good of this cause and of her Majesty's service. Herein, though I were sure to lose my life, yet will I not offend neither the one nor the other, knowing very well that I must die; and to die in her Majesty's faithful service, and with a good conscience, is far more happy than the miserable life that I am in. If Leicester do in this sort stir up the people against the States to follow his revenge against them, and if the Queen do yield no better aid, and the minds of Count Maurice and Hohenlo remain thus in fear and hatred of him, what good end or service can be hoped for here?"—[Buckhurst to Walsingham, 13th June, 1587. (Brit. Mus. Galba, D. I. p. 95, MS.)]

Buckhurst was a man of unimpeached integrity and gentle manners. He had come over with the best intentions towards the governor-general, and it has been seen that he boldly defended him in, his first interviews with the States. But as the intrigues and underhand plottings of the Earl's agents were revealed to him, he felt more and more convinced that there was a deep laid scheme to destroy the government, and to constitute a virtual and absolute sovereignty for Leicester. It was not wonderful that the States were standing vigorously on the defensive.

The subtle Deventer, Leicester's evil genius, did not cease to poison the mind of the governor, during his protracted absence, against all persons who offered impediments to the cherished schemes of his master and himself. "Your Excellency knows very well," he said, "that the state of this country is democratic, since, by failure of a prince, the sovereign disposition of affairs has returned to the people. That same people is everywhere so incredibly affectionate towards you that the delay in your return drives them to extreme despair. Any one who would know the real truth has but to remember the fine fear the States-General were in when the news of your displeasure about the 4th February letter became known."

Had it not been for the efforts of Lord Buckhurst in calming the popular rage, Deventer assured the Earl that the writers of the letter would "have scarcely saved their skins;" and that they had always continued in great danger.

He vehemently urged upon Leicester, the necessity of his immediate return—not so much for reasons drawn from the distracted state of the country, thus left to a provisional government and torn by faction—but because of the facility with which he might at once seize upon arbitrary power. He gratified his master by depicting in lively colours the abject condition into which Barneveld, Maurice, Hohenlo, and similar cowards, would be thrown by his sudden return.

"If," said he, "the States' members and the counts, every one of them, are so desperately afraid of the people, even while your Excellency is afar off, in what trepidation will they be when you are here! God, reason, the affection of the sovereign people, are on your side. There needs, in a little commonwealth like ours, but a wink of the eye, the slightest indication of dissatisfaction on your part, to take away all their valour from men who are only brave where swords are too short. A magnanimous prince like yourself should seek at once the place where such plots are hatching, and you would see the fury of the rebels change at once to cowardice. There is more than one man here in the Netherlands that brags of what he will do against the greatest and most highly endowed prince in England, because he thinks he shall never see him again, who, at the very first news of your return, my Lord, would think only of packing his portmanteau, greasing his boots, or, at the very least, of sneaking back into his hole."

But the sturdy democrat was quite sure that his Excellency, that most magnanimous prince of England would not desert his faithful followers—thereby giving those "filthy rascals," his opponents, a triumph, and "doing so great an injury to the sovereign people, who were ready to get rid of them all at a single blow, if his Excellency would but say the word."

He then implored the magnanimous prince to imitate the example of Moses, Joshua, David, and that of all great emperors and captains, Hebrew, Greek, and Roman, to come at once to the scene of action, and to smite his enemies hip and thigh. He also informed his Excellency, that if the delay should last much longer, he would lose all chance of regaining power, because the sovereign people had quite made up their mind to return to the dominion of Spain within three months, if they could not induce his Excellency to rule over them. In that way at least, if in no other, they could circumvent those filthy rascals whom they so much abhorred, and frustrate the designs of Maurice, Hohenlo, and Sir John Norris, who were represented as occupying the position of the triumvirs after the death of Julius Caesar.

To place its neck under the yoke of Philip II. and the Inquisition, after having so handsomely got rid of both, did not seem a sublime manifestation of sovereignty on the part of the people, and even Deventer had some misgivings as to the propriety of such a result. "What then will become of our beautiful churches?" he cried, "What will princes say, what will the world in general say, what will historians say, about the honour of the English nation?"

As to the first question, it is probable that the prospect of the reformed churches would not have been cheerful, had the inquisition been re-established in Holland and Utrecht, three months after that date. As to the second, the world and history were likely to reply, that the honour of the English nation was fortunately not entirely, entrusted at that epoch to the "magnanimous prince" of Leicester, and his democratic, counsellor-in-chief, burgomaster Deventer.

These are but samples of the ravings which sounded incessantly in the ears of the governor-general. Was it strange that a man, so thirsty for power, so gluttonous of flattery, should be influenced by such passionate appeals? Addressed in strains of fulsome adulation, convinced that arbitrary power was within his reach, and assured that he had but to wink his eye to see his enemies scattered before him, he became impatient of all restraint; and determined, on his return, to crush the States into insignificance.

Thus, while Buckhurst had been doing his best as a mediator to prepare the path for his return, Leicester himself end his partisans had been secretly exerting themselves to make his arrival the signal for discord; perhaps of civil war. The calm, then, immediately succeeding the mission of Buckhurst was a deceitful one, but it seemed very promising. The best feelings were avowed and perhaps entertained. The States professed great devotion to her Majesty and friendly regard for the governor. They distinctly declared that the arrangements by which Maurice and Hohenlo had been placed in their new positions were purely provisional ones, subject to modifications on the arrival of the Earl. "All things are reduced to a quiet calm," said Buckhurst, "ready to receive my Lord of Leicester and his authority, whenever he cometh."

The quarrel of Hohenlo with Sir Edward Norris had been, by the exertions of Buckhurst, amicably arranged: the Count became an intimate friend of Sir John, "to the gladding of all such as wished well to, the country;" but he nourished a deadly hatred to the Earl. He ran up and down like a madman whenever his return was mentioned. "If the Queen be willing to take the sovereignty," he cried out at his own dinner-table to a large company, "and is ready to proceed roundly in this action, I will serve her to the last drop of my blood; but if she embrace it in no other sort than hitherto she hath done, and if Leicester is to return, then am I as good a man as Leicester, and will never be commanded by him. I mean to continue on my frontier, where all who love me can come and find me."

He declared to several persons that he had detected a plot on the part of Leicester to have him assassinated; and the assertion seemed so important, that Villiers came to Councillor Clerk to confer with him on the subject. The worthy Bartholomew, who had again, most reluctantly, left his quiet chambers in the Temple to come again among the guns and drums, which his soul abhorred, was appalled by such a charge. It was best to keep it a secret, he said, at least till the matter could be thoroughly investigated. Villiers was of the same opinion, and accordingly the councillor, in the excess of his caution, confided the secret only—to whom? To Mr. Atye, Leicester's private secretary. Atye, of course, instantly told his master—his master in a frenzy of rage, told the Queen, and her Majesty, in a paroxysm of royal indignation at this new insult to her favourite, sent furious letters to her envoys, to the States-General, to everybody in the Netherlands—so that the assertion of Hohenlo became the subject of endless recrimination. Leicester became very violent, and denounced the statement as an impudent falsehood, devised wilfully in order to cast odium upon him and to prevent his return. Unquestionably there was nothing in the story but table-talk; but the Count would have been still more ferocious towards Leicester than he was, had he known what was actually happening at that very moment.

While Buckhurst was at Utrecht, listening to the "solemn-speeches" of the militia-captains and exchanging friendly expressions at stately banquets with Moeurs, he suddenly received a letter in cipher from her Majesty. Not having the key, he sent to Wilkes at the Hague. Wilkes was very ill; but the despatch was marked pressing and immediate, so he got out of bed and made the journey to Utrecht. The letter, on being deciphered, proved to be an order from the Queen to decoy Hohenlo into some safe town, on pretence of consultation and then to throw him into prison, on the ground that he had been tampering with the enemy, and was about to betray the republic to Philip.

The commotion which would have been excited by any attempt to enforce this order, could be easily imagined by those familiar with Hohenlo and with the powerful party in the Netherlands of which he was one of the chiefs. Wilkes stood aghast as he deciphered the letter. Buckhurst felt the impossibility of obeying the royal will. Both knew the cause, and both foresaw the consequences of the proposed step. Wilkes had heard some rumours of intrigues between Parma's agents at Deventer and Hohenlo, and had confided them to Walsingham, hoping that the Secretary would keep the matter in his own breast, at least till further advice. He was appalled at the sudden action proposed on a mere rumour, which both Buckhurst and himself had begun to consider an idle one. He protested, therefore, to Walsingham that to comply with her Majesty's command would not only be nearly impossible, but would, if successful, hazard the ruin of the republic. Wilkes was also very anxious lest the Earl of Leicester should hear of the matter. He was already the object of hatred to that powerful personage, and thought him capable of accomplishing his destruction in any mode. But if Leicester could wreak his vengeance upon his enemy Wilkes by the hand of his other deadly enemy Hohenlo, the councillor felt that this kind of revenge would have a double sweetness for him. The Queen knows what I have been saying, thought Wilkes, and therefore Leicester knows it; and if Leicester knows it, he will take care that Hohenlo shall hear of it too, and then wo be unto me. "Your honour knoweth," he said to Walsingham, "that her Majesty can hold no secrets, and if she do impart it to Leicester, then am I sped."

Nothing came of it however, and the relations of Wilkes and Buckhurst with Hohenlo continued to be friendly. It was a lesson to Wilkes to be more cautious even with the cautious Walsingham. "We had but bare suspicions," said Buckhurst, "nothing fit, God knoweth, to come to such a reckoning. Wilkes saith he meant it but for a premonition to you there; but I think it will henceforth be a premonition to himself—there being but bare presumptions, and yet shrewd presumptions."

Here then were Deventer and Leicester plotting to overthrow the government of the States; the States and Hohenlo arming against Leicester; the extreme democratic party threatening to go over to the Spaniards within three months; the Earl accused of attempting the life of Hohenlo; Hohenlo offering to shed the last drop of his blood for Queen Elizabeth; Queen Elizabeth giving orders to throw Hohenlo into prison as a traitor; Councillor Wilkes trembling for his life at the hands both of Leicester and Hohenlo; and Buckhurst doing his best to conciliate all parties, and imploring her Majesty in vain to send over money to help on the war, and to save her soldiers from starving.

For the Queen continued to refuse the loan of fifty thousand pounds which the provinces solicited, and in hope of which the States had just agreed to an extra contribution of a million florins (L100,000), a larger sum than had been levied by a single vote since the commencement of the war. It must be remembered, too, that the whole expense of the war fell upon Holland and Zeeland. The Province of Utrecht, where there was so strong a disposition to confer absolute authority upon Leicester, and to destroy the power of the States-General contributed absolutely nothing. Since the Loss of Deventer, nothing could be raised in the Provinces of Utrecht, Gelderland or Overyssel; the Spaniards levying black mail upon the whole territory, and impoverishing the inhabitants till they became almost a nullity. Was it strange then that the States of Holland and Zeeland, thus bearing nearly the whole; burden of the war, should be dissatisfied with the hatred felt toward them by their sister Provinces so generously protected by them? Was it unnatural that Barneveld, and Maurice, and Hohenlo, should be disposed to bridle the despotic inclinations of Leicester, thus fostered by those who existed, as it were, at their expense?

But the Queen refused the L50,000, although Holland and Zeeland had voted the L100,000. "No reason that breedeth charges," sighed Walsingham, "can in any sort be digested."

It was not for want of vehement entreaty on the part of the Secretary of State and of Buckhurst that the loan was denied. At least she was entreated to send over money for her troops, who for six months past were unpaid. "Keeping the money in your coffers," said Buckhurst, "doth yield no interest to you, and—which is above all earthly, respects—it shall be the means of preserving the lives of many of your faithful subjects which otherwise must needs, daily perish. Their miseries, through want of meat and money, I do protest to God so much moves, my soul with commiseration of that which is past, and makes my heart tremble to think of the like to come again, that I humbly beseech your Majesty, for Jesus Christ sake, to have compassion on their lamentable estate past, and send some money to prevent the like hereafter."

These were moving words,—but the money did not come—charges could not be digested.

"The eternal God," cried Buckhurst, "incline your heart to grant the petition of the States for the loan of the L50,000, and that speedily, for the dangerous terms of the State here and the mighty and forward preparation of the enemy admit no minute of delay; so that even to grant it slowly is to deny it utterly."

He then drew a vivid picture of the capacity of the Netherlands to assist the endangered realm of England, if delay were not suffered to destroy both commonwealths, by placing the Provinces in an enemy's hand.

"Their many and notable good havens," he said, "the great number of ships and mariners, their impregnable towns, if they were in the hands of a potent prince that would defend them, and, lastly, the state of this shore; so near and opposite unto the land and coast of England—lo, the sight of all this, daily in mine eye, conjoined with the deep, enrooted malice of that your so mighty enemy who seeketh to regain them; these things entering continually into the meditations of my heart—so much do they import the safety of yourself and your estate—do enforce me, in the abundance of my love and duty to your Majesty, most earnestly to speak, write, and weep unto you, lest when the occasion yet offered shall be gone by, this blessed means of your defence, by God's provident goodness thus put into your hand, will then be utterly lost, lo; never, never more to be recovered again."

It was a noble, wise, and eloquent appeal, but it was muttered in vain. Was not Leicester—his soul filled with petty schemes of reigning in Utrecht, and destroying the constitutional government of the Provinces—in full possession of the royal ear? And was not the same ear lent, at most critical moment, to the insidious Alexander Farnese, with his whispers of peace, which were potent enough to drown all the preparations for the invincible Armada?

Six months had rolled away since Leicester had left the Netherlands; six months long, the Provinces, left in a condition which might have become anarchy, had been saved by the wise government of the States-General; six months long the English soldiers had remained unpaid by their sovereign; and now for six weeks the honest, eloquent, intrepid, but gentle Buckhurst had done his best to conciliate all parties, and to mould the Netherlanders into an impregnable bulwark for the realm of England. But his efforts were treated with scorn by the Queen. She was still maddened by a sense of the injuries done by the States to Leicester. She was indignant that her envoy should have accepted such lame apologies for the 4th of February letter; that he should have received no better atonement for their insolent infringements of the Earl's orders during his absence; that he should have excused their contemptuous proceedings and that, in short, he should have been willing to conciliate and forgive when he should have stormed and railed. "You conceived, it seemeth," said her Majesty, "that a more sharper manner of proceeding would have exasperated matters to the prejudice of the service, and therefore you did think it more fit to wash the wounds rather with water than vinegar, wherein we would rather have wished, on the other side, that you had better considered that festering wounds had more need of corrosives than lenitives. Your own judgment ought to have taught that such a alight and mild kind of dealing with a people so ingrate and void of consideration as the said Estates have showed themselves toward us, is the ready way to increase their contempt."

The envoy might be forgiven for believing that at any rate there would be no lack of corrosives or vinegar, so long as the royal tongue or pen could do their office, as the unfortunate deputies had found to their cost in their late interviews at Greenwich, and as her own envoys in the Netherlands were perpetually finding now. The Queen was especially indignant that the Estates should defend the tone of their letters to the Earl on the ground that he had written a piquant epistle to them. "But you can manifestly see their untruths in naming it a piquant letter," said Elizabeth, "for it has no sour or sharp word therein, nor any clause or reprehension, but is full of gravity and gentle admonition. It deserved a thankful answer, and so you may maintain it to them to their reproof."

The States doubtless thought that the loss of Deventer and, with it, the almost ruinous condition of three out of the seven Provinces, might excuse on their part a little piquancy of phraseology, nor was it easy for them to express gratitude to the governor for his grave and gentle admonitions, after he had, by his secret document of 24th November, rendered himself fully responsible for the disaster they deplored.

She expressed unbounded indignation with Hohenlo, who, as she was well aware, continued to cherish a deadly hatred for Leicester. Especially she was exasperated, and with reason, by the assertion the Count had made concerning the governor's murderous designs upon him. "'Tis a matter," said the Queen, "so foul and dishonourable that doth not only touch greatly the credit of the Earl, but also our own honour, to have one who hath been nourished and brought up by us, and of whom we have made show to the world to have extraordinarily favoured above any other of our own subjects, and used his service in those countries in a place of that reputation he held there, stand charged with so horrible and unworthy a crime. And therefore our pleasure is, even as you tender the continuance of our favour towards you, that you seek, by all the means you may, examining the Count Hollock, or any other party in this matter, to discover and to sift out how this malicious imputation hath been wrought; for we have reason to think that it hath grown out of some cunning device to stay the Earl's coming, and to discourage him from the continuance of his service in those countries."

And there the Queen was undoubtedly in the right. Hohenlo was resolved, if possible, to make the Earl's government of the Netherlands impossible. There was nothing in the story however; and all that by the most diligent "sifting" could ever be discovered, and all that the Count could be prevailed upon to confess, was an opinion expressed by him that if he had gone with Leicester to England, it might perhaps have fared ill with him. But men were given to loose talk in those countries. There was great freedom of tongue and pen; and as the Earl, whether with justice or not, had always been suspected of strong tendencies to assassination, it was not very wonderful that so reckless an individual as Hohenlo should promulgate opinions on such subjects, without much reserve. "The number of crimes that have been imputed to me," said Leicester, "would be incomplete, had this calumny not been added to all preceding ones." It is possible that assassination, especially poisoning, may have been a more common-place affair in those days than our own. At any rate, it is certain that accusations of such crimes were of ordinary occurrence. Men were apt to die suddenly if they had mortal enemies, and people would gossip. At the very same moment, Leicester was deliberately accused not only of murderous intentions towards Hohenlo, but towards Thomas Wilkes and Count Lewis William of Nassau likewise. A trumpeter, arrested in Friesland, had just confessed that he had been employed by the Spanish governor of that Province, Colonel Verdugo, to murder Count Lewis, and that four other persons had been entrusted with the same commission. The Count wrote to Verdugo, and received in reply an indignant denial of the charge. "Had I heard of such a project," said the Spaniard, "I would, on the contrary, have given you warning. And I give you one now." He then stated, as a fact known to him on unquestionable authority, that the Earl of Leicester had assassins at that moment in his employ to take the life of Count Lewis, adding that as for the trumpeter, who had just been hanged for the crime suborned by the writer, he was a most notorious lunatic. In reply, Lewis, while he ridiculed this plea of insanity set up for a culprit who had confessed his crime succinctly and voluntarily, expressed great contempt for the counter-charge against Leicester. "His Excellency," said the sturdy little Count, "is a virtuous gentleman, the most pious and God-fearing I have ever known. I am very sure that he could never treat his enemies in the manner stated, much less his friends. As for yourself, may God give me grace, in requital of your knavish trick, to make such a war upon you as becomes an upright soldier and a man of honour."

Thus there was at least one man—and a most important, one—in the opposition—party who thoroughly believed in the honour of the governor-general.

The Queen then proceeded to lecture Lord Buckhurst very severely for having tolerated an instant the States' proposition to her for a loan of L50,000. "The enemy," she observed, "is quite unable to attempt the siege of any town."

Buckhurst was, however, instructed, in case the States' million should prove insufficient to enable the army to make head against the enemy, and in the event of "any alteration of the good-will of the people towards her, caused by her not yielding, in this their necessity, some convenient support," to let them then understand, "as of himself, that if they would be satisfied with a loan of ten or fifteen thousand pounds, he, would do his best endeavour to draw her Majesty to yield unto the furnishing of such a sum, with assured hope to obtaining the same at her hands."

Truly Walsingham was right in saying that charges of any kind were difficult of digestion: Yet, even at that moment, Elizabeth had no more attached subjects in England than sere the burghers of the Netherlands; who were as anxious ever to annex their territory to her realms.

'Thus, having expressed an affection for Leicester which no one doubted, having once more thoroughly brow-beaten the states, and having soundly lectured Buckhurst—as a requital for his successful efforts to bring about a more wholesome condition of affairs—she gave the envoy a parting stab, with this postscript;—"There is small disproportion," she said "twist a fool who useth not wit because he hath it not, and him that useth it not when it should avail him." Leicester, too, was very violent in his attacks upon Buckhurst. The envoy had succeeded in reconciling Hohenlo with the brothers Norris, and had persuaded Sir John to offer the hand of friendship to Leicester, provided it were sure of being accepted. Yet in this desire to conciliate, the Earl found renewed cause for violence. "I would have had more regard of my Lord of Buckhurst," he said, "if the case had been between him and Norris, but I must regard my own reputation the more that I see others would impair it. You have deserved little thanks of me, if I must deal plainly, who do equal me after this sort with him, whose best place is colonel under me, and once my servant, and preferred by me to all honourable place he had." And thus were enterprises of great moment, intimately affecting the safety of Holland, of England, of all Protestantism, to be suspended between triumph and ruin, in order that the spleen of one individual—one Queen's favourite—might be indulged. The contempt of an insolent grandee for a distinguished commander—himself the son, of a Baron, with a mother the dear friend of her sovereign—was to endanger the existence of great commonwealths. Can the influence of the individual, for good or bad, upon the destinies of the race be doubted, when the characters and conduct of Elizabeth and Leicester, Burghley and Walsingham, Philip and Parma, are closely scrutinized and broadly traced throughout the wide range of their effects?

"And I must now, in your Lordship's sight," continued Leicester, "be made a counsellor with this companion, who never yet to this day hath done so much as take knowledge of my mislike of him; no, not to say this much, which I think would well become his better, that he was sorry, to hear I had mislike to him, that he desired my suspension till he might either speak with me, or be charged from me, and if then he were not able to satisfy me, he would acknowledge his fault, and make me any honest satisfaction. This manner of dealing would have been no disparagement to his better. And even so I must think that your Lordship doth me wrong, knowing what you do, to make so little difference between John Norris, my man not long since, and now but my colonel under me, as though we were equals. And I cannot but more than marvel at this your proceeding, when I remember your promises of friendship, and your opinions resolutely set down . . . . You were so determined before you went hence, but must have become wonderfully enamoured of those men's unknown virtues in a few days of acquaintance, from the alteration that is grown by their own commendations of themselves. You know very well that all the world should not make me serve with John Norris. Your sudden change from mislike to liking has, by consequence, presently cast disgrace upon me. But all is not gold that glitters, nor every shadow a perfect representation . . . . You knew he should not serve with me, but either you thought me a very inconstant man, or else a very simple soul, resolving with you as I did, for you to take the course you have done." He felt, however, quite strong in her Majesty's favour. He knew himself her favourite, beyond all chance or change, and was sure, so long as either lived, to thrust his enemies, by her aid, into outer darkness. Woe to Buckhurst, and Norris, and Wilkes, and all others who consorted with his enemies. Let them flee from the wrath to come! And truly they were only too anxious to do so, for they knew that Leicester's hatred was poisonous. "He is not so facile to forget as ready to revenge," said poor Wilkes, with neat alliteration. "My very heavy and mighty adversary will disgrace and undo me.

"It sufficeth," continued Leicester, "that her Majesty both find my dealings well enough, and so, I trust will graciously use me. As for the reconciliations and love-days you have made there, truly I have liked well of it; for you did sow me your disposition therein before, and I allowed of it, and I had received letters both from Count Maurice and Hohenlo of their humility and kindness, but now in your last letters you say they have uttered the cause of their mislike towards me, which you forbear to write of, looking so speedily for my return."

But the Earl knew well enough what the secret was, for had it not been specially confided by the judicious Bartholomew to Atye, who had incontinently told his master? "This pretense that I should kill Hohenlo," cried Leicester, "is a matter properly foisted in to bring me to choler. I will not suffer it to rest, thus. Its authors shall be duly and severely punished. And albeit I see well enough the plot of this wicked device, yet shall it not work the effect the devisers have done it for. No, my Lord, he is a villain and a false lying knave whosoever he be, and of what, nation soever that hath forged this device. Count Hohenlo doth know I never gave him cause to fear me so much. There were ways and means offered me to have quitted him of the country if I had so liked. This new monstrous villany which is now found out I do hate and detest, as I would look for the right judgment of God to fall upon myself, if I had but once imagined it. All this makes good proof of Wilkes's good dealing with me, that hath heard of so vile and villainous a reproach of me, and never gave me knowledge. But I trust your Lordship shall receive her Majesty's order for this, as for a matter that toucheth herself in honour, and me her poor servant and minister, as dearly as any matter can do; and I will so take it and use it to the uttermost."

We have seen how anxiously Buckhurst had striven to do his duty upon a most difficult mission. Was it unnatural that so fine a nature as his should be disheartened, at reaping nothing but sneers and contumely from the haughty sovereign he served, and from the insolent favourite who controlled her councils? "I beseech your Lordship," he said to Burghley, "keep one ear for me, and do not hastily condemn me before you hear mine answer. For if I ever did or shall do any acceptable service to her Majesty, it was in, the stay and appeasing of these countries, ever ready at my coming to have cast off all good respect towards us, and to have entered even into some desperate cause. In the meantime I am hardly thought of by her Majesty, and in her opinion condemned before mine answer be understood. Therefore I beseech you to help me to return, and not thus to lose her Majesty's favour for my good desert, wasting here my mind, body, my wits, wealth, and all; with continual toils, taxes, and troubles, more than I am able to endure."

But besides his instructions to smooth and expostulate, in which he had succeeded so well, and had been requited so ill; Buckhurst had received a still more difficult commission. He had been ordered to broach the subject of peace, as delicately as possible, but without delay; first sounding the leading politicians, inducing them to listen to the Queen's suggestions on the subject, persuading them that they ought to be satisfied with the principles of the pacification of Ghent, and that it was hopeless for the Provinces to continue the war with their mighty adversary any longer.

Most reluctantly had Buckhurst fulfilled his sovereign's commands in this disastrous course. To talk to the Hollanders of the Ghent pacification seemed puerile. That memorable treaty, ten years before, had been one of the great landmarks of progress, one of the great achievements of William the Silent. By its provisions, public exercise of the reformed religion had been secured for the two Provinces of Holland and Zeeland, and it had been agreed that the secret practice of those rites should be elsewhere winked at, until such time as the States-General, under the auspices of Philip II., should otherwise ordain. But was it conceivable that now, after Philip's authority had been solemnly abjured, and the reformed worship had become the public, dominant religion, throughout all the Provinces,—the whole republic should return to the Spanish dominion, and to such toleration as might be sanctioned by an assembly professing loyalty to the most Catholic King?

Buckhurst had repeatedly warned the Queen, in fervid and eloquent language, as to the intentions of Spain. "There was never peace well made," he observed, "without a mighty war preceding, and always, the sword in hand is the best pen to write the conditions of peace."

"If ever prince had cause," he continued, "to think himself beset with doubt and danger, you, sacred Queen, have most just cause not only to think it, but even certainly to believe it. The Pope doth daily plot nothing else but how he may bring to pass your utter overthrow; the French King hath already sent you threatenings of revenge, and though for that pretended cause I think little will ensue, yet he is blind that seeth not the mortal dislike that boileth deep in his heart for other respects against you. The Scottish King, not only in regard of his future hope, but also by reason of some over conceit in his heart, may be thought a dangerous neighbour to you. The King of Spain armeth and extendeth all his power to ruin both you and your estate. And if the Indian gold have corrupted also the King of Denmark, and made him likewise Spanish, as I marvellously fear; why will not your Majesty, beholding the flames of your enemies on every side kindling around, unlock all your coffers and convert your treasure for the advancing of worthy men, and for the arming of ships and men-of-war that may defend you, since princes' treasures serve only to that end, and, lie they never so fast or so full in their chests, can no ways so defend them?

"The eternal God, in whose hands the hearts of kings do rest, dispose and guide your sacred Majesty to do that which may be most according to His blessed will, and best for you, as I trust He will, even for His mercy's sake, both toward your Majesty and the whole realm of England, whose desolation is thus sought and compassed."

Was this the language of a mischievous intriguer, who was sacrificing the true interest of his country, and whose proceedings were justly earning for him rebuke and disgrace at the hands of his sovereign? Or was it rather the noble advice of an upright statesman, a lover of his country, a faithful servant of his Queen, who had looked through the atmosphere of falsehood in which he was doing his work, and who had detected, with rare sagacity, the secret purposes of those who were then misruling the world?

Buckhurst had no choice, however, but to obey. His private efforts were of course fruitless, but he announced to her Majesty that it was his intention very shortly to bring the matter—according to her wish—before the assembly.

But Elizabeth, seeing that her counsel had been unwise and her action premature, turned upon her envoy, as she was apt to do, and rebuked him for his obedience, so soon as obedience had proved inconvenient to herself.

"Having perused your letters," she said, "by which you at large debate unto us what you have done in the matter of peace . . . . we find it strange that you should proceed further. And although we had given you full and ample direction to proceed to a public dealing in that cause, yet our own discretion, seeing the difficulties and dangers that you yourself saw in the propounding of the matter, ought to have led you to delay till further command from us."

Her Majesty then instructed her envoy, in case he had not yet "propounded the matter in the state-house to the general assembly," to pause entirely until he heard her further pleasure. She concluded, as usual, with a characteristic postcript in her own hand.

"Oh weigh deeplier this matter," she said, "than, with so shallow a judgment, to spill the cause, impair my honour, and shame yourself, with all your wit, that once was supposed better than to lose a bargain for the handling."

Certainly the sphinx could have propounded no more puzzling riddles than those which Elizabeth thus suggested to Buckhurst. To make war without an army, to support an army without pay, to frame the hearts of a whole people to peace who were unanimous for war, and this without saying a word either in private or public; to dispose the Netherlanders favourably to herself and to Leicester, by refusing them men and money, brow-beating them for asking for it, and subjecting them to a course of perpetual insults, which she called "corrosives," to do all this and more seemed difficult. If not to do it, were to spill the cause and to lose the bargain, it was more than probable that they would be spilt and lost.

But the ambassador was no OEdipus—although a man of delicate perceptions and brilliant intellect—and he turned imploringly to a wise counsellor for aid against the tormentor who chose to be so stony-faced and enigmatical.

"Touching the matter of peace," said he to Walsingham, "I have written somewhat to her Majesty in cipher, so as I am sure you will be called for to decipher it. If you did know how infinitely her Majesty did at my departure and before—for in this matter of peace she hath specially used me this good while—command me, pray me, and persuade me to further and hasten the same with all the speed possible that might be, and how, on the other side, I have continually been the man and the mean that have most plainly dehorted her from such post-haste, and that she should never make good peace without a puissant army in the field, you would then say that I had now cause to fear her displeasure for being too slow, and not too forward. And as for all the reasons which in my last letters are set down, her Majesty hath debated them with me many times."

And thus midsummer was fast approaching, the commonwealth was without a regular government, Leicester remained in England nursing his wrath and preparing his schemes, the Queen was at Greenwich, corresponding with Alexander Farnese, and sending riddles to Buckhurst, when the enemy—who, according to her Majesty, was "quite unable to attempt the siege of any town" suddenly appeared in force in Flanders, and invested Sluy's. This most important seaport, both for the destiny of the republic and of England at that critical moment, was insufficiently defended. It was quite time to put an army in the field, with a governor-general to command it.

On the 5th June there was a meeting of the state-council at the Hague. Count Maurice, Hohenlo, and Moeurs were present, besides several members of the States-General. Two propositions were before the council. The first was that it was absolutely necessary to the safety of the republic, now that the enemy had taken the field, and the important city of Sluy's was besieged, for Prince Maurice to be appointed captain-general, until such time as the Earl of Leicester or some other should be sent by her Majesty. The second was to confer upon the state-council the supreme government in civil affairs, for the same period, and to repeal all limitations and restrictions upon the powers of the council made secretly by the Earl.

Chancellor Leoninus, "that grave, wise old man," moved the propositions. The deputies of the States were requested to withdraw. The vote of each councillor was demanded. Buckhurst, who, as the Queen's representative—together with Wilkes and John Norris—had a seat in the council, refused to vote. "It was a matter," he discreetly observed with which "he had not been instructed by her Majesty to intermeddle." Norris and Wilkes also begged to be excused from voting, and, although earnestly urged to do so by the whole council, persisted in their refusal. Both measures were then carried.

No sooner was the vote taken, than an English courier entered the council-chamber, with pressing despatches from Lord Leicester. The letters were at once read. The Earl announced his speedy arrival, and summoned both the States-General and the council to meet him at Dort, where his lodgings were already taken. All were surprised, but none more than Buckhurst, Wilkes, and Norris; for no intimation of this sudden resolution had been received by them, nor any answer given to various propositions, considered by her Majesty as indispensable preliminaries to the governor's visit.

The council adjourned till after dinner, and Buckhurst held conference meantime with various counsellors and deputies. On the reassembling of the board, it was urged by Barneveld, in the name of the States, that the election of Prince Maurice should still hold good. "Although by these letters," said he, "it would seem that her Majesty had resolved upon the speedy return of his Excellency, yet, inasmuch as the counsels and resolutions of princes are often subject to change upon new occasion, it does not seem fit that our late purpose concerning Prince Maurice should receive any interruption."

Accordingly, after brief debate, both resolutions, voted in the morning, were confirmed in the afternoon.

"So now," said Wilkes, "Maurice is general of all the forces, 'et quid sequetur nescimus.'"

But whatever else was to follow, it was very certain that Wilkes would not stay. His great enemy had sworn his destruction, and would now take his choice, whether to do him to death himself, or to throw him into the clutch of the ferocious Hohenlo. "As for my own particular," said the counsellor, "the word is go, whosoever cometh or cometh not," and he announced to Walsingham his intention of departing without permission, should he not immediately receive it from England. "I shall stay to be dandled with no love-days nor leave-takings," he observed.

But Leicester had delayed his coming too long. The country felt that it-had been trifled with by his: absence—at so critical a period—of seven months. It was known too that the Queen was secretly treating with the enemy, and that Buckhurst had been privately sounding leading personages upon that subject, by her orders. This had caused a deep, suppressed indignation. Over and over again had the English government been warned as to the danger of delay. "Your length in resolving;" Wilkes had said, "whatsoever your secret purposes may be—will put us to new plunges before long." The mission of Buckhurst was believed to be "but a stale, having some other intent than was expressed." And at last, the new plunge had been fairly taken. It seemed now impossible for Leicester to regain the absolute authority, which he coveted; and which he had for a brief season possessed. The States-General, under able leaders, had become used to a government which had been forced upon them, and which they had wielded with success. Holland and Zeeland, paying the whole expense of the war, were not likely to endure again the absolute sovereignty of a foreigner, guided by a back stairs council of reckless politicians—most of whom were unprincipled, and some of whom had been proved to be felons—and established, at Utrecht, which contributed nothing to the general purse. If Leicester were really-coming, it seemed certain that he would be held to acknowledge the ancient constitution, and to respect the sovereignty of the States-General. It was resolved that he should be well bridled. The sensations of Barneveld and his party may therefore be imagined, when a private letter of Leicester, to his secretary "the fellow named Junius," as Hohenlo called him—having been intercepted at this moment, gave them an opportunity of studying the Earl's secret thoughts.

The Earl informed his correspondent that he was on the point of starting for the Netherlands. He ordered him therefore to proceed at once to reassure those whom he knew well disposed as to the good intentions of her Majesty and of the governor-general. And if, on the part of Lord Buckhurst or others, it should be intimated that the Queen was resolved to treat for peace with the King of Spain; and wished to have the opinion of the Netherlanders on that subject, he was to say boldly that Lord Buckhurst never had any such charge, and that her Majesty had not been treating at all. She had only been attempting to sound the King's intentions towards the Netherlands, in case of any accord. Having received no satisfactory assurance on the subject, her Majesty was determined to proceed with the defence of these countries. This appeared by the expedition of Drake against Spain, and by the return of the Earl, with a good cumber of soldiers paid by her Majesty, over and above her ordinary subsidy.

"You are also;" said the Earl, "to tell those who have the care of the people" (the ministers of the reformed church and others), "that I am returning, in the confidence that they will, in future, cause all past difficulties to cease, and that they will yield to me a legitimate authority, such as befits for administering the sovereignty of the Provinces, without my being obliged to endure all the oppositions and counter-minings of the States, as in times past. The States must content themselves with retaining the power which they claim to have exercised under the governors of the Emperor and the King—without attempting anything farther during my government—since I desire to do nothing of importance without the advice of the council, which will be composed legitimately of persons of the country. You will also tell them that her Majesty commands me to return unless I can obtain from the States the authority which is necessary, in order not to be governor in appearance only and on paper. And I wish that those who are good may be apprized of all this, in order that nothing may happen to their prejudice and ruin, and contrary to their wishes."

There were two very obvious comments to be made upon this document. Firstly, the States—de jure, as they claimed, and de facto most unquestionably—were in the position of the Emperor and King. They were the sovereigns. The Earl wished them to content themselves with the power which they exercised under the Emperor's governors. This was like requesting the Emperor, when in the Netherlands, to consider himself subject to his own governor. The second obvious reflection was that the Earl, in limiting his authority by a state-council, expected, no doubt, to appoint that body himself—as he had done before—and to allow the members only the right of talking, and of voting,—without the power of enforcing their decisions. In short, it was very plain that Leicester meant to be more absolute than ever.

As to the flat contradiction given to Buckhurst's proceedings in the matter of peace, that statement could scarcely deceive any one who had seen her Majesty's letters and instructions to her envoy.

It was also a singularly deceitful course to be adopted by Leicester towards Buckhurst and towards the Netherlands, because his own private instructions, drawn up at the same moment, expressly enjoined him to do exactly what Buckhurst had been doing. He was most strictly and earnestly commanded to deal privately with all such persons as bad influence with the "common sort of people," in order that they should use their influence with those common people in favour of peace, bringing vividly before them the excessive burthens of the war, their inability to cope with so potent a prince as Philip, and the necessity the Queen was under of discontinuing her contributions to their support. He was to make the same representations to the States, and he was further most explicitly to inform all concerned, that, in case they were unmoved by these suggestions, her Majesty had quite made up her mind to accept the handsome offers of peace held out by the King of Spain, and to leave them to their fate.

It seemed scarcely possible that the letter to Junius and the instructions for the Earl should have been dated the same week, and should have emanated from the same mind; but such was the fact.

He was likewise privately to assure Maurice and Hohenlo—in order to remove their anticipated opposition to the peace—that such care should be taken in providing for them, as that "they should have no just cause to dislike thereof, but to rest satisfied withal."

With regard to the nature of his authority, he was instructed to claim a kind of dictatorship in everything regarding the command of the forces, and the distribution of the public treasure. All offices were to be at his disposal. Every florin contributed by the States was to be placed in his hands, and spent according to his single will. He was also to have plenary power to prevent the trade in victuals with the enemy by death and confiscation.

If opposition to any of these proposals were made by the States-General, he was to appeal to the States of each Province; to the towns and communities, and in case it should prove impossible for him "to be furnished with the desired authority," he was then instructed to say that it was "her Majesty's meaning to leave them to their own counsel and defence, and to withdraw the support that she had yielded to them: seeing plainly that the continuance of the confused government now reigning among them could not but work their ruin."

Both these papers came into Barneveld's hands, through the agency of Ortel, the States' envoy in England, before the arrival of the Earl in the Netherlands.

Of course they soon became the topics of excited conversation and of alarm in every part of the country. Buckhurst, touched to the quick by the reflection upon those—proceedings of his which had been so explicitly enjoined upon him, and so reluctantly undertaken—appealed earnestly to her Majesty. He reminded her, as delicately as possible, that her honour, as well as his own, was at stake by Leicester's insolent disavowals of her authorized ambassador. He besought her to remember "what even her own royal hand had written to the Duke of Parma;" and how much his honour was interested "by the disavowing of his dealings about the peace begun by her Majesty's commandment." He adjured her with much eloquence to think upon the consequences of stirring up the common and unstable multitude against their rulers; upon the pernicious effects of allowing the clergy to inflame the passions of the people against the government. "Under the name of such as have charge over the people," said Buckhurst, "are understood the ministers and chaplains of the churches in every town, by the means of whom it, seems that his Lordship tendeth his whole purpose to attain to his desire of the administration of the sovereignty." He assured the Queen that this scheme of Leicester to seize virtually upon that sovereignty, would be a disastrous one. "The States are resolved," said he, "since your Majesty doth refuse the sovereignty, to lay it upon no creature else, as a thing contrary to their oath and allegiance to their country." He reminded her also that the States had been dissatisfied with the Earl's former administration, believing that he had exceeded his commission, and that they were determined therefore to limit his authority at his return. "Your sacred Majesty may consider," he said, "what effect all this may work among the common and ignorant people, by intimating that, unless they shall procure him the administration of such a sovereignty as he requireth, their ruin may ensue." Buckhurst also informed her that he had despatched Councillor Wilkes to England, in order that he might give more ample information on all these affairs by word of mouth than could well be written.

It need hardly be stated that Barneveld came down to the states'-house with these papers in his hand, and thundered against the delinquent and intriguing governor till the general indignation rose to an alarming height. False statements of course were made to Leicester as to the substance of the Advocate's discourse. He was said to have charged upon the English government an intention to seize forcibly upon their cities, and to transfer them to Spain on payment of the sums due to the Queen from the States, and to have declared that he had found all this treason in the secret instructions of the Earl. But Barneveld had read the instructions, to which the attention of the reader has just been called, and had strictly stated the truth which was damaging enough, without need of exaggeration.