and day in getting his boats together and providing his munitions of war.
He dug a canal from Sas de Gand--which was one of his principal depots--
all the way to Sluys, because the water-communication between those two
points was entirely in the hands of the Hollanders and Zeelanders. The
rebel cruisers swarmed in the Scheldt, from, Flushing almost to Antwerp,
so that it was quite impossible for Parma's forces to venture forth at
all; and it also seemed hopeless to hazard putting to sea from Sluys.
At the same, time he had appointed his, commissioners to treat with the
English envoys already named by the Queen. There had been much delay in
the arrival of those deputies, on account of the noise raised by
Barneveld and his followers; but Burghley was now sanguine that the
exposure of what he called the Advocate's seditious, false, and perverse
proceedings, would enable Leicester to procure the consent of the States
to a universal peace.
And thus, with these parallel schemes of invasion and negotiation,
spring; summer, and autumn, had worn away. Santa Cruz was still with his
fleet in Lisbon, Cadiz, and the Azores; and Parma was in Brussels, when
Philip fondly imagined him established in Greenwich Palace. When made
aware of his master's preposterous expectations, Alexander would have
been perhaps amused, had he not been half beside himself with
indignation. Such folly seemed incredible. There was not the slightest
appearance of a possibility of making a passage without the protection of
the Spanish fleet, he observed. His vessels were mere transport-boats,
without the least power of resisting an enemy. The Hollanders and
Zeelanders, with one hundred and forty cruisers, had shut him up in all
directions. He could neither get out from Antwerp nor from Sluys. There
were large English ships, too, cruising in the channel, and they were
getting ready in the Netherlands and in England "most furiously." The
delays had been so great, that their secret had been poorly kept, and the
enemy was on his guard. If Santa Cruz had come, Alexander declared that
he should have already been in England. When he did come he should still
be prepared to make the passage; but to talk of such an attempt without
the Armada was senseless, and he denounced the madness of that
proposition to his Majesty in vehement and unmeasured terms. His army,
by sickness and other causes, had been reduced to one-half the number
considered necessary for the invasion, and the rebels had established
regular squadrons in the Scheldt, in the very teeth of the forts, at
Lillo, Liefkenshoek, Saftingen, and other points close to Antwerp. There
were so many of these war-vessels, and all in such excellent order, that
they were a most notable embarrassment to him, he observed, and his own
flotilla would run great risk of being utterly destroyed. Alexander had
been personally superintending matters at Sluys, Ghent, and Antwerp, and
had strengthened with artillery the canal which he had constructed
between Sas and Sluys. Meantime his fresh troops had been slowly
arriving, but much sickness prevailed among them. The Italians were
dying fast, almost all the Spaniards were in hospital, and the others
were so crippled and worn out that it was most pitiable to behold them;
yet it was absolutely necessary that those who were in health should
accompany him to England, since otherwise his Spanish force would be
altogether too weak to do the service expected. He had got together a
good number of transports. Not counting his Antwerp fleet--which could
not stir from port, as he bitterly complained, nor be of any use, on
account of the rebel blockade--he had between Dunkerk and Newport
seventy-four vessels of various kinds fit for sea-service, one hundred
and fifty flat-bottoms (pleytas), and seventy riverhoys, all which were
to be assembled at Sluys, whence they would--so soon as Santa Cruz should
make his appearance--set forth for England. This force of transports he
pronounced sufficient, when properly protected by the Spanish Armada, to
carry himself and his troops across the channel. If, therefore, the
matter did not become publicly known, and if the weather proved
favourable, it was probable that his Majesty's desire would soon be
fulfilled according to the plan proposed. The companies of light horse
and of arquebusmen, with which he meant to make his entrance into London,
had been clothed, armed, and mounted, he said, in a manner delightful to
contemplate, and those soldiers at least might be trusted--if they could
only effect their passage--to do good service, and make matters quite
secure.
But craftily as the King and Duke had been dealing, it had been found
impossible to keep such vast preparations entirely secret. Walsingham
was in full possession of their plans down to the most minute details.
The misfortune was that he was unable to persuade his sovereign, Lord
Burghley, and others of the peace-party, as to the accuracy of his
information. Not only was he thoroughly instructed in regard to the
number of men, vessels, horses, mules, saddles, spurs, lances, barrels of
beer and tons of biscuit, and other particulars of the contemplated
invasion, but he had even received curious intelligence as to the
gorgeous equipment of those very troops, with which the Duke was just
secretly announcing to the King his intention of making his triumphal
entrance into the English capital. Sir Francis knew how many thousand
yards of cramoisy velvet, how many hundredweight of gold and silver
embroidery, how much satin and feathers, and what quantity of pearls and
diamonds; Farnese had been providing himself withal. He knew the
tailors, jewellers, silversmiths, and haberdashers, with whom the great
Alexander--as he now began to be called--had been dealing;
["There is provided for lights a great number of torches, and so
tempered that no water can put them out. A great number of little
mills for grinding corn, great store of biscuit baked and oxen
salted, great number of saddles and boots also there is made 500
pair of velvet shoes-red, crimson velvet, and in every cloister
throughout the country great quantity of roses made of silk, white
and red, which are to be badges for divers of his gentlemen. By
reason of these roses it is expected he is going for England. There
is sold to the Prince by John Angel, pergaman, ten hundred-weight of
velvet, gold and silver to embroider his apparel withal. The
covering to his mules is most gorgeously embroidered with gold and
silver, which carry his baggage. There is also sold to him by the
Italian merchants at least 670 pieces of velvet to apparel him and
his train. Every captain has received a gift from the Prince to
make himself brave, and for Captain Corralini, an Italian, who hath
one cornet of horse, I have seen with my eyes a saddle with the
trappings of his horse, his coat and rapier and dagger, which cost
3,500 French crowns. (!!) All their lances are painted of divers
colours, blue and white, green and White, and most part blood-red--
so there is as great preparation for a triumph as for war. A great
number of English priests come to Antwerp from all places. The
commandment is given to all the churches to read the Litany daily
for the prosperity of the Prince in his enterprise." John Giles to
Walsingham, 4 Dec. 1587.(S. P. Office MS.)
The same letter conveyed also very detailed information concerning
the naval preparations by the Duke, besides accurate intelligence in
regard to the progress of the armada in Cadiz and Lisbon.
Sir William Russet wrote also from Flushing concerning these
preparations in much the same strain; but it is worthy of note that
he considered Farnese to be rather intending a movement against
France.
"The Prince of Parma," he said, "is making great preparations for
war, and with all expedition means to march a great army, and for a
triumph, the coats and costly, apparel for his own body doth exceed
for embroidery, and beset with jewels; for all the embroiderers and
diamond-cutters work both night and day, such haste is made. Five
hundred velvet coats of one sort for lances, and a great number of
brave new coats made for horsemen; 30,000 men are ready, and gather
in Brabant and Flanders. It is said that there shall be in two days
10,000 to do some great exploit in these parts, and 20,000 to march
with the Prince into France, and for certain it is not known what
way or how they shall march, but all are ready at an hour's warning
--4,000 saddles, 4000 lances. 6,000 pairs of boots, 2,000 barrels of
beer, biscuit sufficient for a camp of 20,000 men, &c. The Prince
hath received a marvellous costly garland or crown from the Pope,
and is chosen chief of the holy league..."]
but when he spoke at the council-board, it was to ears wilfully deaf.
Nor was much concealed from the Argus-eyed politicians in the republic.
The States were more and more intractable. They knew nearly all the
truth with regard to the intercourse between the Queen's government and
Farnese, and they suspected more than the truth. The list of English
commissioners privately agreed upon between Burghley and De Loo was known
to Barneveld, Maurice, and Hohenlo, before it came to the ears of
Leicester. In June, Buckhurst had been censured by Elizabeth for opening
the peace matter to members of the States, according to her bidding, and
in July Leicester was rebuked for exactly the opposite delinquency. She
was very angry that he had delayed the communication of her policy so
long, but she expressed her anger only when that policy had proved so
transparent as to make concealment hopeless. Leicester, as well as
Buckhurst, knew that it was idle to talk to the Netherlanders of peace,
because of their profound distrust in every word that came from Spanish
or Italian lips; but Leicester, less frank than Buckhurst, preferred to
flatter his sovereign, rather than to tell her unwelcome truths. More
fortunate than Buckhurst, he was rewarded for his flattery by boundless
affection, and promotion to the very highest post in England when the
hour of England's greatest peril had arrived, while the truth-telling
counsellor was consigned to imprisonment and disgrace. When the Queen
complained sharply that the States were mocking her, and that she was
touched in honour at the prospect of not keeping her plighted word to
Farnese, the Earl assured her that the Netherlanders were fast changing
their views; that although the very name of peace had till then been
odious and loathsome, yet now, as coming from her Majesty, they would
accept it with thankful hearts.
The States, or the leading members of that assembly, factious fellows,
pestilent and seditious knaves, were doing their utmost, and were singing
sirens' songs' to enchant and delude the people, but they were fast
losing their influence--so warmly did the country desire to conform to
her Majesty's pleasure. He expatiated, however, upon the difficulties in
his path. The knowledge possessed by the pestilent fellows as to the
actual position of affairs, was very mischievous. It was honey to
Maurice and Hohenlo, he said, that the Queen's secret practices with
Farnese had thus been discovered. Nothing could be more marked than the
jollity with which the ringleaders hailed these preparations for peace-
making, for they now felt certain that the government of their country
had been fixed securely in their own hands. They were canonized, said
the Earl, for their hostility to peace.
Should not this conviction, on the part of men who had so many means of
feeling the popular pulse, have given the Queen's government pause? To
serve his sovereign in truth, Leicester might have admitted a possibility
at least of honesty on the part of men who were so ready to offer up
their lives for their country. For in a very few weeks ho was obliged to
confess that the people were no longer so well disposed to acquiesce in
her Majesty's policy. The great majority, both of the States and the
people, were in favour, he agreed, of continuing the war. The
inhabitants of the little Province of Holland alone, he said, had avowed
their determination to maintain their rights--even if obliged to fight
single-handed--and to shed the last drop in their veins, rather than to
submit again to Spanish tyranny. This seemed a heroic resolution, worthy
the sympathy of a brave Englishman, but the Earl's only comment upon it
was, that it proved the ringleaders "either to be traitors or else the
most blindest asses in the world." He never scrupled, on repeated
occasions, to insinuate that Barneveld, Hohenlo, Buys, Roorda, Sainte
Aldegonde, and the Nassaus, had organized a plot to sell their country to
Spain. Of this there was not the faintest evidence, but it was the only
way in which he chose to account for their persistent opposition to the
peace-negotiations, and to their reluctance to confer absolute power on
himself. "'Tis a crabbed, sullen, proud kind of people," said he, "and
bent on establishing a popular government,"--a purpose which seemed
somewhat inconsistent with the plot for selling their country to Spain,
which he charged in the same breath on the same persons.
Early in August, by the Queen's command, he had sent a formal
communication respecting the private negotiations to the States, but he
could tell them no secret. The names of the commissioners, and even the
supposed articles of a treaty already concluded, were flying from town to
town, from mouth to mouth, so that the Earl pronounced it impossible for
one, not on the spot, to imagine the excitement which existed.
He had sent a state-counsellor, one Bardesius, to the Hague, to open the
matter; but that personage had only ventured to whisper a word to one or
two members of the States, and was assured that the proposition, if made,
would raise such a tumult of fury, that he might fear for his life. So
poor Bardesius came back to Leicester, fell on his knees, and implored
him; at least to pause in these fatal proceedings. After an interval, he
sent two eminent statesmen, Valk and Menin, to lay the subject before the
assembly. They did so, and it was met by fierce denunciation. On their
return, the Earl, finding that so much violence had been excited,
pretended that they had misunderstood his meaning, and that he had never
meant to propose peace-negotiations. But Valk and Menin were too old
politicians to be caught in such a trap, and they produced a brief, drawn
up in Italian--the foreign language best understood by the Earl--with his
own corrections and interlineations, so that he was forced to admit that
there had been no misconception.
Leicester at last could no longer doubt that he was universally odious in
the Provinces. Hohenlo, Barneveld, and the rest, who had "championed the
country against the peace," were carrying all before them. They had
persuaded the people, that the "Queen was but a tickle stay for them,"
and had inflated young Maurice with vast ideas of his importance, telling
him that he was "a natural patriot, the image of his noble father, whose
memory was yet great among them, as good reason, dying in their cause, as
be had done." The country was bent on a popular government, and on
maintaining the war. There was no possibility, he confessed, that they
would ever confer the authority on him which they had formerly bestowed.
The Queen had promised, when he left England the second time, that his
absence should be for but three months, and he now most anxiously claimed
permission to depart. Above all things, he deprecated being employed as
a peace-commissioner. He was, of all men, the most unfit for such a
post. At the same time he implored the statesmen at home to be wary in
selecting the wisest persons for that arduous duty, in order that the
peace might be made for Queen Elizabeth, as well as for King Philip.
He strongly recommended, for that duty, Beale, the councillor, who with
Killigrew had replaced the hated Wilkes and the pacific Bartholomew
Clerk. "Mr. Beale, brother-in-law to Walsingham, is in my books a
prince," said the Earl. "He was drowned in England, but most useful in
the Netherlands. Without him I am naked."
And at last the governor told the Queen what Buckhurst and Walsingham had
been perpetually telling her, that the Duke of Parma meant mischief; and
he sent the same information as to hundreds of boats preparing, with six
thousand shirts for camisados, 7000 pairs of wading boots, and saddles,
stirrups, and spurs, enough for a choice band of 3000 men. A shrewd
troop, said the Earl, of the first soldiers in Christendom, to be landed
some fine morning in England. And he too had heard of the jewelled suits
of cramoisy velvet, and all the rest of the finery with which the
triumphant Alexander was intending to astonish London. "Get horses
enough, and muskets enough in England," exclaimed Leicester, "and then
our people will not be beaten, I warrant you, if well led."
And now, the governor--who, in order to soothe his sovereign and comply
with her vehement wishes, had so long misrepresented the state of public
feeling--not only confessed that Papists and Protestants, gentle and
simple, the States and the people, throughout the republic, were all
opposed to any negotiation with the enemy, but lifted up his own voice,
and in earnest language expressed his opinion of the Queen's infatuation.
"Oh, my Lord, what a treaty is this for peace," said he to Burghley,
"that we must treat, altogether disarmed and weakened, and the King
having made his forces stronger than ever he had known in these parts,
besides what is coming out, of Spain, and yet we will presume of good
conditions. It grieveth me to the heart. But I fear you will all smart
for it, and I pray God her Majesty feel it not, if it be His blessed
will. She meaneth well and sincerely to have peace, but God knows that
this is not the way. Well, God Almighty defend us and the realm, and
especially her Majesty. But look for a sharp war, or a miserable peace,
to undo others and ourselves after."
Walsingham, too, was determined not to act as a commissioner. If his
failing health did not serve as an excuse, he should be obliged to
refuse, he said, and so forfeit her Majesty's favour, rather than be
instrumental in bringing about her ruin, and that of his country. Never
for an instant had the Secretary of State faltered in his opposition to
the timid policy of Burghley. Again and again he had detected the
intrigues of the Lord-Treasurer and Sir James Croft, and ridiculed the
"comptroller's peace."
And especially did Walsingham bewail the implicit confidence which the
Queen placed in the sugary words of Alexander, and the fatal parsimony
which caused her to neglect defending herself against Scotland; for he
was as well informed as was Farnese himself of Philip's arrangements with
the Scotch lords, and of the subsidies in men and money by which their
invasion of England was to be made part of the great scheme. "No one
thing," sighed Walsingham, "doth more prognosticate an alteration of this
estate, than that a prince of her Majesty's judgment should neglect, in
respect of a little charges, the stopping of so dangerous a gap . . .
. . The manner of our cold and careless proceeding here, in this time
of peril, maketh me to take no comfort of my recovery of health, for that
I see, unless it shall please God in mercy and miraculously to preserve
us, we cannot long stand."
Leicester, finding himself unable to counteract the policy of Barneveld
and his party, by expostulation or argument, conceived a very dangerous
and criminal project before he left the country. The facts are somewhat
veiled in mystery; but he was suspected, on weighty evidence, of a design
to kidnap both Maurice and Barneveld, and carry them off to England. Of
this intention, which was foiled at any rate, before it could be carried
into execution, there is perhaps not conclusive proof, but it has already
been shown, from a deciphered letter, that the Queen had once given
Buckhurst and Wilkes peremptory orders to seize the person of Hohenlo,
and it is quite possible that similar orders may have been received at a
later moment with regard to the young Count and the Advocate. At any
rate, it is certain that late in the autumn, some friends of Barneveld
entered his bedroom, at the Hague, in the dead of night, and informed him
that a plot was on foot to lay violent hands upon him, and that an armed
force was already on its way to execute this purpose of Leicester, before
the dawn of day. The Advocate, without loss of time, took his departure
for Delft, a step which was followed, shortly afterwards, by Maurice.
Nor was this the only daring--stroke which the Earl had meditated.
During the progress of the secret negotiations with Parma, he had not
neglected those still more secret schemes to which he had occasionally
made allusion. He had determined, if possible, to obtain possession of
the most important cities in Holland and Zeeland. It was very plain to
him, that he could no longer hope, by fair means, for the great authority
once conferred upon him by the free will of the States. It was his
purpose, therefore, by force and stratagem to recover his lost power.
We have heard the violent terms in which both the Queen and the Earl
denounced the men who accused the English government of any such
intention. It had been formally denied by the States-General that
Barneveld had ever used the language in that assembly with which he had
been charged. He had only revealed to them the exact purport of the
letter to Junius, and of the Queen's secret instructions to Leicester.
Whatever he may have said in private conversation, and whatever
deductions he may have made among his intimate friends, from the admitted
facts in the case, could hardly be made matters of record. It does not
appear that he, or the statesmen who acted with him, considered the Earl
capable of a deliberate design to sell the cities, thus to be acquired,
to Spain, as the price of peace for England. Certainly Elizabeth would
have scorned such a crime, and was justly indignant at rumours prevalent
to that effect; but the wrath of the Queen and of her favourite were,
perhaps, somewhat simulated, in order to cover their real mortification
at the discovery of designs on the part of the Earl which could not be
denied. Not only had they been at last compelled to confess these
negotiations, which for several months had been concealed and stubbornly
denied, but the still graver plots of the Earl to regain his much-coveted
authority had been, in a startling manner, revealed. The leaders of the
States-General had a right to suspect the English Earl of a design to
reenact the part of the Duke of Anjou, and were justified in taking
stringent measures to prevent a calamity, which, as they believed, was
impending over their little commonwealth. The high-handed dealings of
Leicester in the city of Utrecht have been already described. The most
respectable and influential burghers of the place had been imprisoned and
banished, the municipal government wrested from the hands to which it
legitimately belonged, and confided to adventurers, who wore the cloak of
Calvinism to conceal their designs, and a successful effort had been
made, in the name of democracy, to eradicate from one ancient province
the liberty on which it prided itself.
In the course of the autumn, an attempt was made to play the same game at
Amsterdam. A plot was discovered, before it was fairly matured, to seize
the magistrates of that important city, to gain possession of the
arsenals, and to place the government in the hands of well-known
Leicestrians. A list of fourteen influential citizens, drawn up in the
writing of Burgrave, the Earl's confidential secretary, was found, all of
whom, it was asserted, had been doomed to the scaffold.
The plot to secure Amsterdam had failed, but, in North Holland, Medenblik
was held firmly for Leicester, by Diedrich Sonoy, in the very teeth of
the States. The important city of Enkhuyzen, too, was very near being
secured for the Earl, but a still more significant movement was made at
Leyden. That heroic city, ever since the famous siege of 1574, in which
the Spaniard had been so signally foiled, had distinguished itself by
great liberality of sentiment in religious matters. The burghers were
inspired by a love of country, and a hatred of oppression, both civil
and, ecclesiastical; and Papists and Protestants, who had fought side by
side against the common foe, were not disposed to tear each other to
pieces, now that he had been excluded from their gates. Meanwhile,
however, refugee Flemings and Brabantines had sought an asylum in the
city, and being, as usual, of the strictest sect of the Calvinists were
shocked at the latitudinarianism which prevailed. To the honour of the
city--as it seems to us now--but, to their horror, it was even found that
one or two Papists had seats in the magistracy. More than all this,
there was a school in the town kept by a Catholic, and Adrian van der
Werff himself--the renowned burgomaster, who had sustained the city
during the dreadful leaguer of 1574, and who had told the famishing
burghers that they might eat him if they liked, but that they should
never surrender to the Spaniards while he remained alive--even Adrian van
der Werff had sent his son to this very school? To the clamour made by
the refugees against this spirit of toleration, one of the favourite
preachers in the town, of Arminian tendencies, had declared in the
pulpit, that he would as lieve see the Spanish as the Calvinistic
inquisition established over his country; using an expression, in regard
to the church of Geneva, more energetic than decorous.
It was from Leyden that the chief opposition came to a synod, by which a
great attempt was to be made towards subjecting the new commonwealth to a
masked theocracy; a scheme which the States of Holland had resisted with
might and main. The Calvinistic party, waxing stronger in Leyden,
although still in a minority, at last resolved upon a strong effort to
place the city in the hands of that great representative of Calvinism,
the Earl of Leicester. Jacques Volmar, a deacon of the church, Cosmo de
Pescarengis, a Genoese captain of much experience in the service of the
republic, Adolphus de Meetkerke, former president of Flanders, who had
been, by the States, deprived of the seat in the great council to which
the Earl had appointed him; Doctor Saravia, professor of theology in the
university, with other deacons, preachers, and captains, went at
different times from Leyden to Utrecht, and had secret interviews with
Leicester.
A plan was at last agreed upon, according to which, about the middle of
October, a revolution should be effected in Leyden. Captain Nicholas de
Maulde, who had recently so much distinguished himself in the defence of
Sluys, was stationed with two companies of States' troops in the city.
He had been much disgusted--not without reason--at the culpable
negligence through which the courageous efforts of the Sluys garrison
had been set at nought, and the place sacrificed, when it might so easily
have been relieved; and he ascribed the whole of the guilt to Maurice,
Hohenlo, and the States, although it could hardly be denied that at least
an equal portion belonged to Leicester and his party. The young captain
listened, therefore, to a scheme propounded to him by Colonel Cosine, and
Deacon Volmar, in the name of Leicester. He agreed, on a certain day, to
muster his company, to leave the city by the Delft gate--as if by command
of superior authority--to effect a junction with Captain Heraugiere,
another of the distinguished malcontent defenders of Sluys, who was
stationed, with his command, at Delft, and then to re-enter Leyden, take
possession of the town-hall, arrest all the magistrates, together with
Adrian van der Werff, ex-burgomaster, and proclaim Lord Leicester, in the
name of Queen Elizabeth, legitimate master of the city. A list of
burghers, who were to be executed, was likewise agreed upon, at a final
meeting of the conspirators in a hostelry, which bore the ominous name of
'The Thunderbolt.' A desire had been signified by Leicester, in the
preliminary interviews at Utrecht, that all bloodshed, if possible,
should be spared, but it was certainly an extravagant expectation,
considering the, temper, the political convictions, and the known courage
of the Leyden burghers, that the city would submit, without a struggle,
to this invasion of all their rights. It could hardly be doubted that
the streets would run red with blood, as those of Antwerp had done, when
a similar attempt, on the part of Anjou, had been foiled.
Unfortunately for the scheme, a day or two before the great stroke was to
be hazarded, Cosmo de Pescarengis had been accidentally arrested for
debt. A subordinate accomplice, taking alarm, had then gone before the
magistrate and revealed the plot. Volmar and de Maulde fled at once, but
were soon arrested in the neighbourhood. President de Meetkerke,
Professor Saravia, the preacher Van der Wauw, and others most
compromised, effected their escape. The matter was instantly laid before
the States of Holland by the magistracy of Leyden, and seemed of the
gravest moment. In the beginning of the year, the fatal treason of York
and Stanley had implanted a deep suspicion of Leicester in the hearts of
almost all the Netherlanders, which could not be eradicated. The painful
rumours concerning the secret negotiations with Spain, and the design
falsely attributed to the English Queen, of selling the chief cities of
the republic to Philip as the price of peace, and of reimbursement for
expenses incurred by her, increased the general excitement to fever. It
was felt by the leaders of the States that as mortal a combat lay before
them with the Earl of Leicester, as with the King of Spain, and that it
was necessary to strike a severe blow, in order to vindicate their
imperilled authority.
A commission was appointed by the high court of Holland, acting in
conjunction with the States of the Provinces, to try the offenders.
Among the commissioners were Adrian van der Werff, John van der Does, who
had been military commandant of Leyden during the siege, Barneveld, and
other distinguished personages, over whom Count Maurice presided. The
accused were subjected to an impartial trial. Without torture, they
confessed their guilt. It is true, however, that Cosmo was placed within
sight of the rack. He avowed that his object had been to place the city
under the authority of Leicester, and to effect this purpose, if
possible, without bloodshed. He declared that the attempt was to be made
with the full knowledge and approbation of the Earl, who had promised him
the command of a regiment of twelve companies, as a recompense for his
services, if they proved successful. Leicester, said Cosmo, had also
pledged himself, in case the men, thus executing his plans, should be
discovered and endangered, to protect and rescue them, even at the
sacrifice of all his fortune, and of the office he held. When asked if
he had any written statement from his Excellency to that effect, Cosmo
replied, no, nothing but his princely word which he had voluntarily
given.
Volmar made a similar confession. He, too, declared that he had acted
throughout the affair by express command of the Earl of Leicester. Being
asked if he had any written evidence of the fact, he, likewise, replied
in the negative. "Then his Excellency will unquestionably deny your
assertion," said the judges. "Alas, then am I a dead man," replied
Volmar, and the unfortunate deacon never spoke truer words. Captain de
Maulde also confessed his crime. He did not pretend, however, to have
had any personal communication with Leicester, but said that the affair
had been confided to him by Colonel Cosmo, on the express authority of
the Earl, and that he had believed himself to be acting in obedience to
his Excellency's commands.
On the 26th October, after a thorough investigation, followed by a full
confession on the part of the culprits, the three were sentenced to
death. The decree was surely a most severe one. They had been guilty of
no actual crime, and only in case of high treason could an intention to
commit a crime be considered, by the laws of the state, an offence
punishable with death. But it was exactly because it was important to
make the crime high treason that the prisoners were condemned. The
offence was considered as a crime not against Leyden, but as an attempt
to levy war upon a city which was a member of the States of Holland and
of the United States. If the States were sovereign, then this was a
lesion of their sovereignty. Moreover, the offence had been aggravated
by the employment of United States' troops against the commonwealth of
the United States itself. To cut off the heads of these prisoners was a
sharp practical answer to the claims of sovereignty by Leicester, as
representing the people, and a terrible warning to all who might, in
future; be disposed to revive the theories of Deventer and Burgrave.
In the case of De Maulde the punishment seemed especially severe. His
fate excited universal sympathy, and great efforts were made to obtain
his pardon. He was a universal favourite; he was young; he was very
handsome; his manners were attractive; he belonged to an ancient and
honourable race. His father, the Seigneur de Mansart, had done great
services in the war of independence, had been an intimate friend of the
great Prince of Orange, and had even advanced large sums of money to
assist his noble efforts to liberate the country. Two brothers of the
young captain had fallen in the service of the republic. He, too, had
distinguished himself at Ostend, and his gallantry during the recent
siege of Sluys had been in every mouth, and had excited the warm applause
of so good a judge of soldiership as the veteran Roger Williams. The
scars of the wounds received in the desperate conflicts of that siege
were fresh upon his breast. He had not intended to commit treason, but,
convinced by the sophistry of older soldiers than himself, as well as by
learned deacons and theologians, he had imagined himself doing his duty,
while obeying the Earl of Leicester. If there were ever a time for
mercy, this seemed one, and young Maurice of Nassau might have
remembered, that even in the case of the assassins who had attempted the
life of his father, that great-hearted man had lifted up his voice--which
seemed his dying one--in favour of those who had sought his life.
But they authorities were inexorable. There was no hope of a mitigation
of punishment, but a last effort was made, under favour of a singular
ancient custom, to save the life of De Maulde. A young lady of noble
family in Leyden--Uytenbroek by name--claimed the right of rescuing the
condemned malefactor, from the axe, by appearing upon the scaffold, and
offering to take him for her husband.
Intelligence was brought to the prisoner in his dungeon, that the young,
lady had made the proposition, and he was told to be of good cheer: But
he refused to be comforted. He was slightly acquainted with the gentle-
woman, he observed; and doubted much whether her request would be
granted. Moreover if contemporary chronicle can be trusted he even
expressed a preference for the scaffold, as the milder fate of the two.
The lady, however, not being aware of those uncomplimentary sentiments,
made her proposal to the magistrates, but was dismissed with harsh
rebukes. She had need be ashamed, they said; of her willingness to take
a condemned traitor for her husband. It was urged, in her behalf, that
even in the cruel Alva's time, the ancient custom had been respected,
and that victims had been saved from the executioners, on a demand in
marriage made even by women of abandoned character. But all was of no
avail. The prisoners were executed on the 26th October, the same day
on which the sentence had been pronounced. The heads of Volmar and Cosmo
were exposed on one of the turrets of the city. That of Maulde was
interred with his body.
The Earl was indignant when he heard of the event. As there had been no
written proof of his complicity in the conspiracy, the judges had thought
it improper to mention his name in the sentences. He, of course, denied
any knowledge of the plot, and its proof rested therefore only on the
assertion of the prisoners themselves, which, however, was
circumstantial, voluntary, and generally believed!
France, during the whole of this year of expectation, was ploughed
throughout its whole surface by perpetual civil war. The fatal edict of
June, 1585, had drowned the unhappy land in blood. Foreign armies,
called in by the various contending factions, ravaged its-fair territory,
butchered its peasantry, and changed its fertile plains to a wilderness.
The unhappy creature who wore the crown of Charlemagne and of Hugh Capet,
was but the tool in the hands of the most profligate and designing of his
own subjects, and of foreigners. Slowly and surely the net, spread by
the hands of his own mother, of his own prime minister, of the Duke of
Guise, all obeying the command and receiving the stipend of Philip,
seemed closing over him. He was without friends, without power to know
his friends, if he had them. In his hatred to the Reformation, he had
allowed himself to be made the enemy of the only man who could be his
friend, or the friend of France. Allied with his mortal foe, whose
armies were strengthened by contingents from Parma's forces, and paid for
by Spanish gold, he was forced to a mock triumph over the foreign
mercenaries who came to save his crown, and to submit to the defeat of
the flower of his chivalry, by the only man who could rescue France from
ruin, and whom France could look up to with respect.
For, on the 20th October, Henry of Navarre had at last gained a victory.
After twenty-seven years of perpetual defeat, during which they had been
growing stronger and stronger, the Protestants had met the picked troops
of Henry III., under the Due de Joyeuse, near the burgh of Contras. His
cousins Conde and Soissons each commanded a wing in the army of the
Warnese. "You are both of my family," said Henry, before the engagement,
"and the Lord so help me, but I will show you that I am the eldest born."
And during that bloody day the white plume was ever tossing where the
battle, was fiercest. "I choose to show myself. They shall see the
Bearnese," was his reply to those who implored him to have a care for his
personal safety. And at last, when the day was done, the victory gained,
and more French nobles lay dead on the field, as Catharine de' Medici
bitterly declared, than had fallen in a battle for twenty years; when two
thousand of the King's best troops had been slain, and when the bodies of
Joyeuse and his brother had been laid out in the very room where the
conqueror's supper, after the battle, was served, but where he refused,
with a shudder, to eat, he was still as eager as before--had the wretched
Valois been possessed of a spark of manhood, or of intelligence--to
shield him and his kingdom from the common enemy.'
For it could hardly be doubtful, even to Henry III., at that moment, that
Philip II. and his jackal, the Duke of Guise, were pursuing him to the
death, and that, in his breathless doublings to escape, he had been
forced to turn upon his natural protector. And now Joyeuse was defeated
and slain. Had it been my brother's son," exclaimed Cardinal de Bourbon,
weeping and wailing, "how much better it would have been." It was not
easy to slay the champion of French Protestantism; yet, to one less
buoyant, the game, even after the brilliant but fruitless victory of
Contras, might have seemed desperate. Beggared and outcast, with
literally scarce a shirt to his back, without money to pay a corporal's
guard, how was he to maintain an army?
But 'Mucio' was more successful than Joyeuse had been, and the German and
Swiss mercenaries who had come across the border to assist the Bearnese,
were adroitly handled by Philip's great stipendiary. Henry of Valois,
whose troops had just been defeated at Contras, was now compelled to
participate in a more fatal series of triumphs. For alas, the victim had
tied himself to the apron-string of "Madam League," and was paraded by
her, in triumph, before the eyes of his own subjects and of the world.
The passage of the Loire by the auxiliaries was resisted; a series of
petty victories was gained by Guise, and, at last, after it was obvious
that the leaders of the legions had been corrupted with Spanish ducats,
Henry allowed them to depart, rather than give the Balafre opportunity
for still farther successes.
Then came the triumph in Paris--hosannahs in the churches, huzzas in the
public places--not for the King, but for Guise. Paris, more madly in
love with her champion than ever, prostrated herself at his feet. For
him paeans as to a deliverer. Without him the ark would have fallen into
the hands of the Philistines. For the Valois, shouts of scorn from the
populace, thunders from the pulpit, anathemas from monk and priest,
elaborate invectives from all the pedants of the Sorbonne, distant
mutterings of excommunication from Rome--not the toothless beldame of
modern days, but the avenging divinity of priest-rid monarchs. Such were
the results of the edicts of June. Spain and the Pope had trampled upon
France, and the populace in her capital clapped their hands and jumped
for joy. "Miserable country miserable King," sighed an illustrious
patriot, "whom his own countrymen wish rather to survive, than to die to
defend him! Let the name of Huguenot and of Papist be never heard of
more. Let us think only of the counter-league. Is France to be saved by
opening all its gates to Spain? Is France to be turned out of France, to
make a lodging for the Lorrainer and the Spaniard?" Pregnant questions,
which could not yet be answered, for the end was not yet. France was to
become still more and more a wilderness. And well did that same brave
and thoughtful lover, of his: country declare, that he who should
suddenly awake from a sleep of twenty-five years, and revisit that once
beautiful land, would deem himself transplanted to a barbarous island of
cannibals.--[Duplessis Mornay, 'Mem.' iv. 1-34.]
It had now become quite obvious that the game of Leicester was played
out. His career--as it has now been fully exhibited--could have but one
termination. He had made himself thoroughly odious to the nation whom he
came to govern. He had lost for ever the authority once spontaneously
bestowed; and he had attempted in vain, both by fair means and foul, to
recover that power. There was nothing left him but retreat. Of this he
was thoroughly convinced. He was anxious to be gone, the republic most
desirous to be rid of him, her Majesty impatient to have her favourite
back again. The indulgent Queen, seeing nothing to blame in his conduct,
while her indignation, at the attitude maintained by the Provinces was
boundless, permitted him, accordingly, to return; and in her letter to
the States, announcing this decision, she took a fresh opportunity of
emptying her wrath upon their heads.
She told them, that, notwithstanding her frequent messages to them,
signifying her evil contentment with their unthankfulness for her
exceeding great benefits, and with their gross violations of their
contract with herself and with Leicester, whom they had, of their own
accord, made absolute governor without her instigation; she had never
received any good answer to move, her to commit their sins to oblivion,
nor had she remarked, any amendment in their conduct. On the contrary,
she complained: that they daily increased their offences, most
notoriously in the sight of--the world and in so many points that she
lacked words to express them in one letter. She however thought it worth
while to allude to some of their transgressions. She, declared that
their sinister, or rather barbarous interpretation of her conduct had
been notorious in perverting and falsifying her princely and Christian
intentions; when she imparted to them the overtures that had been made to
her for a treaty of peace for herself and for them with the King of
Spain. Yet although she had required their allowance, before she would
give her assent, she had been grieved that the world should see what
impudent untruths had been forged upon her, not only by their.
sufferance; but by their special permission for her Christian good
meaning towards them. She denounced the statements as to her having
concluded a treaty, not only without their knowledge; but with the
sacrifice of their liberty and religion, as utterly false, either for
anything done in act, or intended in thought, by her. She complained
that upon this most false ground had been heaped a number of like
untruths and malicious slanders against her cousin Leicester, who had
hazarded his life, spend his substance, left his native country, absented
himself from her, and lost his time, only for their service. It had been
falsely stated among them, she said, that the Earl had come over the last
time, knowing that peace had been secretly concluded. It was false that
he had intended to surprise divers of their towns, and deliver them to
the King of Spain. All such untruths contained matter so improbable,
that it was most, strange that any person; having any sense, could
imagine them correct. Having thus slightly animadverted upon their
wilfulness, unthankfulness, and bad government, and having, in very
plain English, given them the lie, eight distinct and separate times
upon a single page, she proceeded to inform them that she had recalled
her cousin Leicester, having great cause to use his services in England,
and not seeing how, by his tarrying there, he could either profit them or
herself. Nevertheless she protested herself not void of compassion for
their estate, and for the pitiful condition of the great multitude of
kind and godly people, subject to the miseries which, by the States
government, were like to fall upon them, unless God should specially
interpose; and she had therefore determined, for the time, to continue
her subsidies, according to the covenant between them. If, meantime, she
should conclude a peace with Spain, she promised to them the same care
for their country as for her own.
Accordingly the Earl, after despatching an equally ill-tempered letter to
the States, in which he alluded, at unmerciful length, to all the old
grievances, blamed them for the loss of Sluys, for which place he
protested that they had manifested no more interest than if it had been
San Domingo in Hispaniola, took his departure for Flushing. After
remaining there, in a very moody frame of mind, for several days,
expecting that the States would, at least, send a committee to wait upon
him and receive his farewells, he took leave of them by letter. "God
send me shortly a wind to blow me from them all," he exclaimed--a prayer
which was soon granted--and before the end of the year he was safely
landed in England. "These legs of mine," said he, clapping his hands
upon them as he sat in his chamber at Margate, "shall never go again into
Holland. Let the States get others to serve their mercenary turn, for me
they shall not have." Upon giving up the government, he caused a medal
to be struck in his own honour. The device was a flock of sheep watched
by an English mastiff. Two mottoes--"non gregem aed ingratos," and
"invitus desero"--expressed his opinion of Dutch ingratitude and his own
fidelity. The Hollanders, on their part, struck several medals to
commemorate the same event, some of which were not destitute of
invention. Upon one of them, for instance, was represented an ape
smothering her young ones to death in her embrace, with the device,
"Libertas ne its chara ut simiae catuli;" while upon the reverse was a
man avoiding smoke and falling into the fire, with the inscription,
"Fugiens fumum, incidit in ignem."
Leicester found the usual sunshine at Greenwich. All the efforts of
Norris, Wilkes, and Buckhurst, had been insufficient to raise even a
doubt in Elizabeth's mind as to the wisdom and integrity by which his
administration of the Provinces had been characterised from beginning to
end. Those who had appealed from his hatred to the justice of their
sovereign, had met with disgrace and chastisement. But for the great
Earl; the Queen's favour was a rock of adamant. At a private interview
he threw himself at her feet, and with tears and sobs implored her not to
receive him in disgrace whom she had sent forth in honour. His
blandishments prevailed, as they had always done. Instead, therefore,
of appearing before the council, kneeling, to answer such inquiries as
ought surely to have been instituted, he took his seat boldly among his
colleagues, replying haughtily to all murmurs by a reference to her
Majesty's secret instructions.
The unhappy English soldiers, who had gone forth under his banner in
midsummer, had been returning, as they best might, in winter, starving,
half-naked wretches, to beg a morsel of bread at the gates of Greenwich
palace, and to be driven away as vagabonds, with threats of the stock.
This was not the fault of the Earl, for he had fed them with his own
generous hand in the Netherlands, week after week, when no money for
their necessities could be obtained from the paymasters. Two thousand
pounds had been sent by Elizabeth to her soldiers when sixty-four
thousand pounds arrearage were due, and no language could exaggerate the
misery to which these outcasts, according to eye-witnesses of their own
nation, were reduced.
Lord Willoughby was appointed to the command, of what remained of these
unfortunate troops, upon--the Earl's departure. The sovereignty of the
Netherlands remained undisputed with the States. Leicester resigned his,
commission by an instrument dated 17/27 December, which, however, never
reached the Netherlands till April of the following year. From that time
forth the government of the republic maintained the same forms which the
assembly had claimed for it in the long controversy with the governor-
general, and which have been sufficiently described.
Meantime the negotiations for a treaty, no longer secret, continued.
The Queen; infatuated as ever, still believed in the sincerity of
Farnese, while that astute personage and his master were steadily
maturing their schemes. A matrimonial alliance was secretly projected
between the King of Scots and Philip's daughter, the Infants Isabella,
with the consent of the Pope and the whole college of cardinals; and
James, by the whole force of the Holy League, was to be placed upon the
throne of Elizabeth. In the case of his death, without issue, Philip
was to succeed quietly to the crowns of England, Scotland, and Ireland.
Nothing could be simpler or more rational, and accordingly these
arrangements were the table-talk at Rome, and met with general
approbation.
Communications to this effect; coming straight from the Colonna palace,
were thought sufficiently circumstantial to be transmitted to the English
government. Maurice of Nassau wrote with his own hand to Walsingham,
professing a warm attachment to the cause in which Holland and England
were united, and perfect personal devotion to the English Queen.
His language, was not that of a youth, who, according to Leicester's
repeated insinuations, was leagued with the most distinguished soldiers
and statesmen of the Netherlands to sell their country to Spain.
But Elizabeth was not to be convinced. She thought it extremely probable
that the Provinces would be invaded, and doubtless felt some anxiety for
England. It was unfortunate that the possession of Sluys had given
Alexander such a point of vantage; and there was moreover, a fear that he
might take possession of Ostend. She had, therefore, already recommended
that her own troops should be removed from that city, that its walls
should be razed; its marine bulwarks destroyed, and that the ocean.
should be let in to swallow the devoted city forever--the inhabitants
having been previously allowed to take their departure. For it was
assumed by her Majesty that to attempt resistance would be idle, and that
Ostend could never stand a siege.
The advice was not taken; and before the end of her reign Elizabeth was
destined to see this indefensible city--only fit, in her judgment, to be
abandoned to the waves--become memorable; throughout all time, for the
longest; and, in many respects, the most remarkable siege which modern
history has recorded, the famous leaguer, in which the first European
captains of the coming age were to take their lessons, year after year,
in the school of the great Dutch soldier, who was now but a "solemn, sly
youth," just turned of twenty.
The only military achievement which characterized the close of the year,
to the great satisfaction of the Provinces and the annoyance of Parma,
was the surprise of the city of Bonn. The indefatigable Martin Schenk--
in fulfilment of his great contract with the States-General, by which the
war on the Rhine had been farmed out to him on such profitable terms:--
had led his mercenaries against this important town. He had found one of
its gates somewhat insecurely guarded, placed a mortar under it at night,
and occupied a neighbouring pig-stye with a number of his men, who by
chasing, maltreating, and slaughtering the swine, had raised an unearthly
din, sufficient to drown the martial operations at the gate. In brief,
the place was easily mastered, and taken possession of by Martin, in the
name of the deposed elector, Gebhard Truchsess--the first stroke of good
fortune which had for a long time befallen that melancholy prelate.
The administration of Leicester has been so minutely pictured, that it
would be superfluous to indulge in many concluding reflections. His acts
and words have been made to speak for themselves. His career in the
country has been described with much detail, because the period was a
great epoch of transition. The republic of the Netherlands, during those
years, acquired consistency and permanent form. It seemed possible, on
the Earl's first advent, that the Provinces might become part and parcel
of the English realm. Whether such a consummation would have been
desirable or not, is a fruitless enquiry. But it is certain that the
selection of such a man as Leicester made that result impossible.
Doubtless there were many errors committed by all parties. The Queen
was supposed by the Netherlands to be secretly desirous of accepting the
sovereignty of the Provinces, provided she were made sure, by the Earl's
experience, that they were competent to protect themselves. But this
suspicion was unfounded. The result of every investigation showed the
country so full of resources, of wealth, and of military and naval
capabilities, that, united with England, it would have been a source of
great revenue and power, not a burthen and an expense. Yet, when
convinced of such facts, by the statistics which were liberally laid
before her by her confidential agents, she never manifested, either in
public or private, any intention of accepting the sovereignty. This
being her avowed determination, it was an error on the part of the
States, before becoming thoroughly acquainted with the man's character,
to confer upon Leicester the almost boundless authority which they
granted on, his first arrival. It was a still graver mistake, on the
part of Elizabeth, to give way to such explosions of fury, both against
the governor and the States, when informed of the offer and acceptance of
that authority. The Earl, elevated by the adulation of others, and by
his own vanity, into an almost sovereign attitude, saw himself chastised
before the world, like an aspiring lackey, by her in whose favour he
had felt most secure. He found, himself, in an instant, humbled and
ridiculous. Between himself and the Queen it was, something of a lovers'
quarrel, and he soon found balsam in the hand that smote him. But though
reinstated in authority, he was never again the object of reverence in
the land he was attempting to rule. As he came to know the Netherlanders
better, he recognized the great capacity which their statesmen concealed
under a plain and sometimes a plebeian exterior, and the splendid grandee
hated, where at first he had only despised. The Netherlanders, too, who
had been used to look up almost with worship to a plain man of kindly
manners, in felt hat and bargeman's woollen jacket, whom they called
"Father William," did not appreciate, as they ought, the magnificence of
the stranger who had been sent to govern them. The Earl was handsome,
quick-witted, brave; but he was, neither wise in council nor capable in
the field. He was intolerably arrogant, passionate, and revengeful.
He hated easily, and he hated for life. It was soon obvious that no
cordiality of feeling or of action could exist between him and the plain,
stubborn Hollanders. He had the fatal characteristic of loving only the
persons who flattered him. With much perception of character, sense of
humour, and appreciation of intellect, he recognized the power of the
leading men in the nation, and sought to gain them. So long as he hoped
success, he was loud in their praises. They were all wise, substantial,
well-languaged, big fellows, such as were not to be found in England or
anywhere else. When they refused to be made his tools, they became
tinkers, boors, devils, and atheists. He covered them with curses and
devoted them to the gibbet. He began by warmly commending Buys and
Barneveld, Hohenlo and Maurice, and endowing them with every virtue.
Before he left the country he had accused them of every crime, and would
cheerfully, if he could, have taken the life of every one of them. And
it was quite the same with nearly every Englishman who served with or
under him. Wilkes and Buckhurst, however much the objects of his
previous esteem; so soon as they ventured to censure or even to criticise
his proceedings, were at once devoted to perdition. Yet, after minute
examination of the record, public and private, neither Wilkes nor
Buckhurst can be found guilty of treachery or animosity towards him, but
are proved to have been governed, in all their conduct, by a strong sense
of duty to their sovereign, the Netherlands, and Leicester himself.
To Sir John Norris, it must be allowed, that he was never fickle,
for he had always entertained for that distinguished general an honest,
unswerving, and infinite hatred, which was not susceptible of increase
or diminution by any act or word. Pelham, too, whose days were numbered,
and who was dying bankrupt and broken-hearted, at the close of the,
Earl's administration, had always been regarded by him with tenderness
and affection. But Pelham had never thwarted him, had exposed his life
for him, and was always proud of being his faithful, unquestioning,
humble adherent. With perhaps this single exception, Leicester found
himself at the end of his second term in the Provinces, without a single
friend and with few respectable partisans. Subordinate mischievous
intriguers like Deventer, Junius, and Otheman, were his chief advisers
and the instruments of his schemes.
With such qualifications it was hardly possible--even if the current of
affairs had been flowing smoothly--that he should prove a successful
governor of the new republic. But when the numerous errors and
adventitious circumstances are considered--for some of which he was
responsible, while of others he was the victim--it must be esteemed
fortunate that no great catastrophe occurred. His immoderate elevation;
his sudden degradation, his controversy in regard to the sovereignty, his
abrupt departure for England, his protracted absence, his mistimed
return, the secret instructions for his second administration, the
obstinate parsimony and persistent ill-temper of the Queen--who, from the
beginning to the end of the Earl's government, never addressed a kindly
word to the Netherlanders, but was ever censuring and brow beating them
in public state-papers and private epistles--the treason of York and
Stanley, above all, the disastrous and concealed negotiations with Parma,
and the desperate attempts upon Amsterdam and Leyden--all placed him in a
most unfortunate position from first to last. But he was not competent
for his post under any circumstances. He was not the statesman to deal
in policy with Buys, Barneveld, Ortel, Sainte Aldegonde; nor the soldier
to measure himself against Alexander Farnese. His administration was a
failure; and although he repeatedly hazarded his life, and poured out his
wealth in their behalf with an almost unequalled liberality, he could
never gain the hearts of the Netherlanders. English valour, English
intelligence, English truthfulness, English generosity, were endearing
England more and more to Holland. The statesmen of both countries were
brought into closest union, and learned to appreciate and to respect
each other, while they recognized that the fate of their respective
commonwealths was indissolubly united. But it was to the efforts of
Walsingham, Drake, Raleigh, Wilkes, Buckburst, Norris, Willoughby,
Williams, Vere, Russell, and the brave men who fought under their banners
or their counsels, on every battle-field, and in every beleaguered town
in the Netherlands, and to the universal spirit and sagacity of the
English nation, in this grand crisis of its fate, that these fortunate
results were owing; not to the Earl of Leicester, nor--during the term of
his administration--to Queen Elizabeth herself.
In brief, the proper sphere of this remarkable personage, and the one
in which he passed the greater portion of his existence, was that of a
magnificent court favourite, the spoiled darling, from youth to his
death-bed, of the great English Queen; whether to the advantage or not of
his country and the true interests of his sovereign, there can hardly be
at this day any difference of opinion.