The deputation was a strong one. There was Falck of Zeeland, a man of

consummate adroitness, perhaps not of as satisfactory integrity; "a

shrewd fellow and a fine," as Lord Leicester soon afterwards

characterised him. There was Menin, pensionary of Dort, an eloquent and

accomplished orator, and employed on this occasion as chief spokesman of

the legation--"a deeper man, and, I think, an honester," said the same

personage, adding, with an eye to business, "and he is but poor, which

you must consider, but with great secrecy." There was Paul Buys, whom we

have met with before; keen, subtle, somewhat loose of life, very

passionate, a most most energetic and valuable friend to England, a

determined foe to France, who had resigned the important post of

Holland's Advocate, when the mission offering sovereignty to Henry III.

had been resolved upon, and who had since that period been most

influential in procuring the present triumph of the English policy.

Through his exertions the Province of Holland had been induced at an

early moment to furnish the most ample instructions to the commissioners

for the satisfaction of Queen Elizabeth in the great matter of the

mortgages. "Judge if this Paul Buys has done his work well," said a

French agent in the Netherlands, who, despite the infamous conduct of his

government towards the Provinces, was doing his best to frustrate the

subsequent negotiation with England, "and whether or no he has Holland

under his thumb." The same individual had conceived hopes from Falck of

Zeeland. That Province, in which lay the great bone of contention between

the Queen and the States--the important town of Flushing--was much slower

than Holland to agree to the English policy. It is to be feared that

Falck was not the most ingenuous and disinterested politician that could

be found even in an age not distinguished for frankness or purity; for

even while setting forth upon the mission to Elizabeth, he was still

clingihg, or affecting to cling, to the wretched delusion of French

assistance. "I regret infinitely," said Falck to the French agent just

mentioned, "that I am employed in this affair, and that it is necessary

in our present straits to have recourse to England. There is--so to

speak--not a person in our Province that is inclined that way, all

recognizing very well that France is much more salutary for us, besides

that we all bear her a certain affection. Indeed, if I were assured that

the King still felt any goodwill towards us, I would so manage matters

that neither the Queen of England, nor any other prince whatever except

his most Christian-Majesty should take a bite at this country, at least

at this Province, and with that view, while waiting for news from France,

I will keep things in suspense, and spin them out as long as it is

possible to do."

The news from France happened soon to be very conclusive, and it then

became difficult even for Falek to believe--after intelligence received

of the accord between Henry III. and the Guises--that his Christian

Majesty, would be inclined for a bite at the Netherlands. This duplicity

on the part of so leading a personage furnishes a key to much of the

apparent dilatoriness on the part of the English government: It has been

seen that Elizabeth, up to the last moment, could not fairly comprehend

the ineffable meanness of the French monarch. She told Ortel that she saw

no reason to believe in that great Catholic conspiracy against herself

and against all Protestantism which was so soon to be made public by the

King's edict of July, promulgated at the very instant of the arrival in

England of the Netherland envoys. Then that dread fiat had gone forth,

the most determined favourer of the French alliance could no longer admit

its possibility, and Falck became the more open to that peculiar line of

argument which Leicester had suggested with regard to one of the other

deputies. "I will do my best," wrote Walsingham, "to procure that Paul

Buys and Falck shall receive underhand some reward."

Besides Menin, Falck, and Buys, were Noel de Caron, an experienced

diplomatist; the poet-soldier, Van der Does; heroic defender of Leyden;

De Gryze, Hersolte, Francis Maalzoon, and three legal Frisians of pith

and substance, Feitsma, Aisma, and Jongema; a dozen Dutchmen together--as

muscular champions as ever little republic sent forth to wrestle with all

comers in the slippery ring of diplomacy. For it was instinctively felt

that here were conclusions to be tried with a nation of deep, solid

thinkers, who were aware that a great crisis in the world's history had

occurred, and would put forth their most substantial men to deal with it:

Burghley and Walsingham, the great Queen herself, were no feather-weights

like the frivolous Henry III., and his minions. It was pity, however,

that the discussions about to ensue presented from the outset rather the

aspect of a hard hitting encounter of antagonists than that of a frank

and friendly congress between two great parties whose interests were

identical.

Since the death of William the Silent, there was no one individual in the

Netherlands to impersonate the great struggle of the Provinces with Spain

and Rome, and to concentrate upon his own head a poetical, dramatic, and

yet most legitimate interest. The great purpose of the present history

must be found in its illustration of the creative power of civil and

religious freedom. Here was a little republic, just born into the world,

suddenly bereft of its tutelary saint, left to its own resources, yet

already instinct with healthy vigorous life, and playing its difficult

part among friends and enemies with audacity, self-reliance, and success.

To a certain extent its achievements were anonymous, but a great

principle manifested itself through a series of noble deeds. Statesmen,

soldiers, patriots, came forward on all sides to do the work which was to

be done, and those who were brought into closest contact with the

commonwealth acknowledged in strongest language the signal ability with

which, self-guided, she steered her course. Nevertheless, there was at

this moment one Netherlander, the chief of the present mission to

England, already the foremost statesman of his country, whose name will

not soon be effaced from the record of the sixteenth and seventeenth

centuries. That man was John of Olden-Barneveld.

He was now in his thirty-eighth year, having been born at Amersfoot on

the 14th of September, 1547. He bore an imposing name, for the

Olden-Barnevelds of Gelderland were a race of unquestionable and antique

nobility. His enemies, however, questioned his right to the descent which

he claimed. They did not dispute that the great grandfather, Class van

Olden-Barneveld, was of distinguished lineage and allied to many

illustrious houses, but they denied that Class was really the great

grandfather of John. John's father, Gerritt, they said, was a nameless

outcast, a felon, a murderer, who had escaped the punishment due to his

crimes, but had dragged out a miserable existence in the downs, burrowing

like a rabbit in the sand. They had also much to say in disparagement of

all John's connections. Not only was his father a murderer, but his wife,

whom he had married for money, was the child of a most horrible incest,

his sisters were prostitutes, his sons and brothers were debauchees and

drunkards, and, in short, never had a distinguished man a more

uncomfortable and discreditable family-circle than that which surrounded

Barneveld, if the report of his enemies was to be believed. Yet it is

agreeable to reflect that, with all the venom which they had such power

of secreting, these malignant tongues had been unable to destroy the

reputation of the man himself. John's character was honourable and

upright, his intellectual power not disputed even by those who at a later

period hated him the most bitterly. He had been a profound and

indefatigable student from his earliest youth. He had read law at Leyden,

in France, at Heidelberg. Here, in the head-quarters of German Calvinism,

his youthful mind had long pondered the dread themes of foreknowledge,

judgment absolute, free will, and predestination: To believe it worth the

while of a rational and intelligent Deity to create annually several

millions of thinking beings, who were to struggle for a brief period on

earth, and to consume in perpetual brimstone afterwards, while others

were predestined to endless enjoyment, seemed to him an indifferent

exchange for a faith in the purgatory and paradise of Rome. Perplexed in

the extreme, the youthful John bethought himself of an inscription over

the gateway of his famous but questionable great grandfather's house at

Amersfort--'nil scire tutissima fides.' He resolved thenceforth to adopt

a system of ignorance upon matters beyond the flaming walls of the world;

to do the work before him manfully and faithfully while he walked the

earth, and to trust that a benevolent Creator would devote neither him

nor any other man to eternal hellfire. For this most offensive doctrine

he was howled at by the strictly pious, while he earned still deeper

opprobrium by daring to advocate religious toleration: In face of the

endless horrors inflicted by the Spanish Inquisition upon his native

land, he had the hardihood--although a determined Protestant himself--to

claim for Roman Catholics the right to exercise their religion in the

free States on equal terms with those of the reformed faith. "Anyone,"

said his enemies, "could smell what that meant who had not a wooden

nose." In brief, he was a liberal Christian, both in theory and practice,

and he nobly confronted in consequence the wrath of bigots on both sides.

At a later period the most zealous Calvinists called him Pope John, and

the opinions to which he was to owe such appellations had already been

formed in his mind.

After completing his very thorough legal studies, he had practised as an

advocate in Holland and Zeeland. An early defender of civil and religious

freedom, he had been brought at an early day into contact with William

the Silent, who recognized his ability. He had borne a snap-hance on his

shoulder as a volunteer in the memorable attempt to relieve Haarlem, and

was one of the few survivors of that bloody night. He had stood outside

the walls of Leyden in company of the Prince of Orange when that

magnificent destruction of the dykes had taken place by which the city

had been saved from the fate impending over it. At a still more recent

period we have seen him landing from the gun-boats upon the Kowenstyn, on

the fatal 26th May. These military adventures were, however, but brief

and accidental episodes in his career, which was that of a statesman and

diplomatist. As pensionary of Rotterdam, he was constantly a member of

the General Assembly, and had already begun to guide the policy of the

new commonwealth. His experience was considerable, and he was now in the

high noon of his vigour and his usefulness.

He was a man of noble and imposing presence, with thick hair pushed from

a broad forehead rising dome-like above a square and massive face; a

strong deeply-coloured physiognomy, with shaggy brow, a chill blue eye,

not winning but commanding, high cheek bones, a solid, somewhat scornful

nose, a firm mouth and chin, enveloped in a copious brown beard; the

whole head not unfitly framed in the stiff formal ruff of the period; and

the tall stately figure well draped in magisterial robes of velvet and

sable--such was John of Olden-Barneveld.

The Commissioners thus described arrived at Greenwich Stairs, and were at

once ushered into the palace, a residence which had been much enlarged

and decorated by Henry VIII.

They were received with stately ceremony. The presence-chamber was hung

with Gobelin tapestry, its floor strewn with rushes. Fifty-gentlemen

pensioners, with gilt battle-ages, and a throng of 'buffetiers', or

beef-eaters, in that quaint old-world garb which has survived so many

centuries, were in attendance, while the counsellors of the Queen, in

their robes of state, waited around the throne.

There, in close skull-cap and dark flowing gown, was the subtle,

monastic-looking Walsingham, with long, grave, melancholy face and

Spanish eyes. There too, white staff in hand, was Lord High Treasurer

Burghley, then sixty-five years of age, with serene blue eye, large,

smooth, pale, scarce-wrinkled face and forehead; seeming, with his

placid, symmetrical features, and great velvet bonnet, under which such

silver hairs as remained were soberly tucked away, and with his long dark

robes which swept the ground, more like a dignified gentlewoman than a

statesman, but for the wintery beard which lay like a snow-drift on his

ancient breast.

The Queen was then in the fifty-third year of her age, and considered

herself in the full bloom of her beauty. Her, garments were of satin and

velvet, with fringes of pearl as big as beans. A small gold crown was

upon her head, and her red hair, throughout its multiplicity of curls,

blazed with diamonds and emeralds. Her forehead was tall, her face long,

her complexion fair, her eyes small, dark, and glittering, her nose high

and hooked, her lips thin, her teeth black, her bosom white and liberally

exposed. As she passed through the ante-chamber to the presence-hall,

supplicants presented petitions upon their knees. Wherever she glanced,

all prostrated themselves on the ground. The cry of "Long live Queen

Elizabeth" was spontaneous and perpetual; the reply; "I thank you, my

good people," was constant and cordial. She spoke to various foreigners

in their respective languages, being mistress, besides the Latin and

Greek, of French, Spanish, Italian, and German. As the Commissioners were

presented to her by Lord Buckhurst it was observed that she was

perpetually gloving and ungloving, as if to attract attention to her

hand, which was esteemed a wonder of beauty. She spoke French with purity

and elegance, but with a drawling, somewhat affected accent, saying "Paar

maa foi; paar le Dieeu vivaant," and so forth, in a style which was

ridiculed by Parisians, as she sometimes, to her extreme annoyance,

discovered.

Joos de Menin, pensionary of Dort, in the name of all the envoys, made an

elaborate address. He expressed the gratitude which the States

entertained for her past kindness, and particularly for the good offices

rendered by Ambassador Davison after the death of the Prince of Orange,

and for the deep regret expressed by her Majesty for their disappointment

in the hopes they had founded upon France.

"Since the death of the Prince of Orange," he said, "the States have lost

many important cities, and now, for the preservation of their existence,

they have need of a prince and sovereign lord to defend them against the

tyranny and iniquitous oppression of the Spaniards and their adherents,

who are more and more determined utterly to destroy their country, and

reduce the poor people to a perpetual slavery worse than that of Indians,

under the insupportable and detestable yoke of the Spanish Inquisition.

We have felt a confidence that your Majesty will not choose to see us

perish at the hands of the enemy against whom we have been obliged to

sustain this long and cruel war. That war we have undertaken in order to

preserve for the poor people their liberty, laws, and franchises,

together with the exercise of the true Christian religion, of which your

Majesty bears rightfully the title of defender, and against which the

enemy and his allies have made so many leagues and devised so many

ambushes and stratagems, besides organizing every day so many plots

against the life of your Majesty and the safety of your realms--schemes

which thus far the good God has averted for the good of Christianity and

the maintenance of His churches. For these reasons, Madam, the States

have taken a firm resolution to have recourse to your Majesty, seeing

that it is an ordinary thing for all oppressed nations to apply in their

calamity to neighbouring princes, and especially to such as are endowed

with piety, justice, magnanimity, and other kingly virtues. For this

reason we have been deputed to offer to your Majesty the sovereignty over

these Provinces, under certain good and equitable conditions, having

reference chiefly to the maintenance of the reformed religion and of our

ancient liberties and customs. And although, in the course of these long

and continued wars, the enemy has obtained possession of many cities and

strong places within our couniry, nevertheless the Provinces of Holland,

Zeeland, Utrecht, and Friesland, are, thank God, still entire. And in

those lands are many large and stately cities, beautiful and deep rivers,

admirable seaports, from which your Majesty and your successors can

derive much good fruit and commodity, of which it is scarcely, necessary

to make a long recital. This point, however, beyond the rest, merits a

special consideration; namely, that the conjunction of those Provinces of

Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, and Friesland, together with the cities of

Sluys and Ostend, with the kingdoms of your Majesty, carries with it the

absolute empire of the great ocean, and consequently an assurance of

perpetual felicity for your subjects. We therefore humbly entreat you to

agree to our conditions, to accept the sovereign seignory of these

Provinces, and consequently to receive the people of the same as your

very humble and obedient subjects, under the perpetual safeguard of your

crown--a people certainly as faithful and loving towards their princes

and sovereign lords, to speak without boasting, as any in all

Christendom.

"So doing, Madam, you will preserve many beautiful churches which it has

pleased God to raise up in these lands, now much afflicted and shaken,

and you will deliver this country and people--before the iniquitous

invasion of the Spaniards, so rich and flourishing by the great Commodity

of the sea, their ports and rivers, their commerce and manufactures, for

all which they have such natural advantages--from ruin and perpetual

slavery of body and soul. This will be a truly excellent work, agreeable

to God, profitable to Christianity, worthy of immortal praise, and

comporting with the heroic virtues of your Majesty, and ensuring the

prosperity of your country and people. With this we present to your

Majesty our articles and conditions, and pray that the King of Kings may

preserve you from all your enemies and ever have you in His holy

keeping."

The Queen listened intently and very courteously to the delivery of this

address, and then made answer in French to this effect:--"Gentlemen,--Had

I a thousand tongues I should not be able to express my obligation to you

for the great and handsome offers which you have just made. I firmly

believe that this proceeds from the true zeal, devotion, and affection,

which you have always borne me, and I am certain that you have ever

preferred me to all the princes and potentates in the world. Even when

you selected the late Duke of Anjou, who was so dear to me, and to whose

soul I hope that God has been merciful, I know that you would sooner have

offered your country to me if I had desired that you should do so.

Certainly I esteem it a great thing that you wish to be governed by me,

and I feel so much obliged to you in consequence that I will never

abandon you, but, on the contrary, assist you till the last sigh of my

life. I know very well that your princes have treated you ill, and that

the Spaniards are endeavouring to ruin you entirely; but I will come to

your aid, and I will consider what I can do, consistently with my honour,

in regard to the articles which you have brought me. They shall be

examined by the members of my council, and I promise that I will not keep

you three or four months, for I know very well that your affairs require

haste, and that they will become ruinous if you are not assisted. It is

not my custom to procrastinate, and upon this occasion I shall not dally,

as others have done, but let you have my answer very soon."

Certainly, if the Provinces needed a king, which they had most

unequivocally declared to be the case, they might have wandered the whole

earth over, and, had it been possible, searched through the whole range

of history, before finding a monarch with a more kingly spirit than the

great Queen to whom they had at last had recourse.

Unfortunately, she was resolute in her refusal to accept the offered

sovereignty. The first interview terminated with this exchange of

addresses, and the deputies departed in their barges for their lodgings

in Pynchon-lane.

The next two days were past in perpetual conferences, generally at Lord

Burghley's house, between the envoys and the lords of the council, in

which the acceptance of the sovereignty was vehemently urged on the part

of the Netherlanders, and steadily declined in the name of her Majesty.

"Her Highness," said Burghley, "cannot be induced, by any writing or

harangue that you can make, to accept the principality or proprietorship

as sovereign, and it will therefore be labour lost for you to exhibit any

writing for the purpose of changing her intention. It will be better to

content yourselves with her Majesty's consent to assist you, and to take

you under her protection."

Nevertheless, two days afterwards, a writing was exhibited, drawn up by

Menin, in which another elaborate effort was made to alter the Queen's

determination. This anxiety, on the part of men already the principal

personages in a republic, to merge the independent existence of their

commonwealth in another and a foreign political organism, proved, at any

rate; that they were influenced by patriotic motives alone. It is also

instructive to observe the intense language with which the necessity of a

central paramount sovereignty for all the Provinces, and the

inconveniences of the separate States' right principle were urged by a

deputation, at the head of which stood Olden-Barneveld. "Although it is

not becoming in us," said they, "to enquire into your Majesty's motives

for refusing the sovereignty of our country, nevertheless, we cannot help

observing that your consent would be most profitable, as well to your

Majesty, and your successors, as to the Provinces themselves. By your

acceptance of the sovereignty the two peoples would be, as it were,

united in one body. This would cause a fraternal benevolence between

them, and a single reverence, love, and obedience to your Majesty.--The

two peoples being thus under the government of the same sovereign prince,

the intrigues and practices which the enemy could attempt with persons

under a separate subjection, would of necessity surcease. Moreover, those

Provinces are all distinct duchies, counties, seignories, governed by

their own magistrates, laws, and ordinances; each by itself, without any

authority or command to be exercised by one Province over another. To

this end they have need of a supreme power and of one sovereign prince or

seignor, who may command all equally, having a constant regard to the

public weal--considered as a generality, and not with regard to the

profit of the one or the other individual Province--and, causing promptly

and universally to be executed such ordinances as may be made in the

matter of war or police, according to various emergencies. Each Province,

on the contrary, retaining its sovereignty over its own inhabitants,

obedience will not be so promptly and completely rendered to the commands

of the lieutenant-general of your Majesty, and many, a good enterprise

and opportunity, will be lost. Where there is not a single authority it

is always found that one party endeavours to usurp power over another, or

to escape doing his duty so thoroughly as the others. And this has

notoriously been the case in the matter of contributions, imposts, and

similar matters."

Thus much, and more of similar argument, logically urged, made it

sufficiently evident that twenty years of revolt and of hard fighting

against one king, had not destroyed in the minds of the leading

Netherlanders their conviction of the necessity of kingship. If the new

commonwealth was likely to remain a republic, it was, at that moment at

any rate, because they could not find a king. Certainly they did their

best to annex themselves to England, and to become loyal subjects of

England's Elizabeth. But the Queen, besides other objections to the

course proposed by the Provinces, thought that she could do a better

thing in the way of mortgages. In this, perhaps, there was something of

the penny-wise policy, which sprang from one great defect in her

character. At any rate much mischief was done by the mercantile spirit

which dictated the hard chaffering on both sides the Channel at this

important juncture; for during this tedious flint-paring, Antwerp, which

might have been saved, was falling into the hands of Philip. It should

never be forgotten, however, that the Queen had no standing army, and but

a small revenue. The men to be sent from England to the Netherland wars

were first to be levied wherever it was possible to find them. In truth,

many were pressed in the various wards of London, furnished with red

coats and matchlocks at the expense of the citizens, and so despatched,

helter-skelter, in small squads as opportunity offered. General Sir John

Norris was already superintending these operations, by command of the

Queen, before the present formal negotiation with the States had begun.

Subsequently to the 11th July, on which day the second address had been

made to Elizabeth, the envoys had many conferences with Leicester,

Burghley, Walsingham, and other councillors, without making much

progress. There was perpetual wrangling about figures and securities.

"What terms will you pledge for the repayment of the monies to be

advanced?" asked Burghley and Walsingham.

"But if her Majesty takes the sovereignty," answered the deputies, "there

will be no question of guarantees. The Queen will possess our whole land,

and there will be no need of any repayment."

"And we have told you over and over again," said the Lord Treasurer,

"that her Majesty will never think of accepting the sovereignty. She will

assist you in money and men, and must be repaid to the last farthing when

the war is over; and, until that period, must have solid pledges in the

shape of a town in each Province."

Then came interrogatories as to the amount of troops and funds to be

raised respectively by the Queen and the States for the common cause. The

Provinces wished her Majesty to pay one-third of the whole expense, while

her Majesty was reluctant to pay one-quarter. The States wished a

permanent force to be kept on foot in the Netherlands of thirteen

thousand infantry and two thousand cavalry for the field, and

twenty-three thousand for garrisons. The councillors thought the last

item too much. Then there were queries as to the expense of maintaining a

force in the Provinces. The envoys reckoned one pound sterling, or ten

florins, a month for the pay of each foot soldier, including officers;

and for the cavalry, three times as much. This seemed reasonable, and the

answers to the inquiries touching the expense of the war-vessels and

sailors were equally satisfactory. Nevertheless it was difficult to bring

the Queen up to the line to which the envoys had been limited by their

instructions. Five thousand foot and one thousand horse serving at the

Queen's expense till the war should be concluded, over and above the

garrisons for such cautionary towns as should be agreed upon; this was

considered, by the States, the minimum. The Queen held out for giving

only four thousand foot and four hundred horse, and for deducting the

garrisons even from this slender force. As guarantee for the expense thus

to be incurred, she required that Flushing and Brill should be placed in

her hands. Moreover the position of Antwerp complicated the negotiation.

Elizabeth, fully sensible of the importance of preserving that great

capital, offered four thousand soldiers to serve until that city should

be relieved, requiring repayment within three months after the object

should have been accomplished. As special guarantee for such repayment

she required Sluys and Ostend. This was sharp bargaining, but, at any

rate, the envoys knew that the Queen, though cavilling to the ninth-part

of a hair, was no trifler, and that she meant to perform whatever she

should promise.

There was another exchange of speeches at the Palace of Nonesuch, on the

5th August; and the position of affairs and the respective attitudes of

the Queen and envoys were plainly characterized by the language then

employed.

After an exordium about the cruelty of the Spanish tyranny and the

enormous expense entailed by the war upon the Netherlands, Menin, who, as

usual, was the spokesman, alluded to the difficulty which the States at

last felt in maintaining themselves.

"Five thousand foot and one thousand horse," he said, "over and above the

maintenance of garrisons in the towns to be pledged as security to your

Majesty, seemed the very least amount of succour that would be probably

obtained from your royal bounty. Considering the great demonstrations of

affection and promises of support, made as well by your Majesty's own

letters as by the mouth of your ambassador Davison, and by our envoys De

Gryse and Ortel, who have all declared publicly that your Majesty would

never forsake us, the States sent us their deputies to this country in

full confidence that such reasonable demands as we had been authorized to

make would be satisfied."

The speaker then proceeded to declare that the offer made by the royal

councillors of four thousand foot and four hundred horse, to serve during

the war, together with a special force of four thousand for the relief of

Antwerp, to be paid for within three months after the siege should be

raised, against a concession of the cities of Flushing, Brill, Sluys, and

Ostend, did not come within the limitations of the States-General. They

therefore begged the Queen to enlarge her offer to the number of five

thousand foot and one thousand horse, or at least to allow the envoys to

conclude the treaty provisionally, and subject to approval of their

constituents.

So soon as Menin had concluded his address, her Majesty instantly

replied, with much earnestness and fluency of language.

"Gentlemen," she said, "I will answer you upon the first point, because

it touches my honour. You say that I promised you, both by letters and

through my agent Davison, and also by my own lips, to assist you and

never to abandon you, and that this had moved you to come to me at

present. Very well, masters, do you not think I am assisting you when I

am sending you four thousand foot and four hundred horse to serve during

the war? Certainly, I think yes; and I say frankly that I have never been

wanting to my word. No man shall ever say, with truth, that the Queen of

England had at any time and ever so slightly failed in her promises,

whether to the mightiest monarch, to republics, to gentlemen, or even to

private persons of the humblest condition. Am I, then, in your opinion,

forsaking you when I send you English blood, which I love, and which is

my own blood, and which I am bound to defend? It seems to me, no. For my

part I tell you again that I will never forsake you.

"'Sed de modo?' That is matter for agreement. You are aware, gentlemen,

that I have storms to fear from many quarters--from France, Scotland,

Ireland, and within my own kingdom. What would be said if I looked only

on one side, and if on that side I employed all my resources. No, I will

give my subjects no cause for murmuring. I know that my counsellors

desire to manage matters with prudence; 'sed aetatem habeo', and you are

to believe, that, of my own motion, I have resolved not to extend my

offer of assistance, at present, beyond the amount already stated. But I

don't say that at another time I may not be able to do more for you. For

my intention is never to abandon your cause, always to assist you, and

never more to suffer any foreign nation to have dominion over you.

"It is true that you present me with two places in each of your

Provinces. I thank you for them infinitely, and certainly it is a great

offer. But it will be said instantly, the Queen of England wishes to

embrace and devour everything; while, on the contrary, I only wish to

render you assistance. I believe, in truth, that if other monarchs should

have this offer, they would not allow such an opportunity to escape. I do

not let it slip because of fears that I entertain for any prince

whatever. For to think that I am not aware--doing what I am doing--that I

am embarking in a war against the King of Spain, is a great mistake. I

know very well that the succour which I am affording you will offend him

as much as if I should do a great deal more. But what care I? Let him

begin, I will answer him. For my part, I say again, that never did fear

enter my heart. We must all die once. I know very well that many princes

are my enemies, and are seeking my ruin; and that where malice is joined

with force, malice often arrives at its ends. But I am not so feeble a

princess that I have not the means and the will to defend myself against

them all. They are seeking to take my life, but it troubles me not. He

who is on high has defended me until this hour, and will keep me still,

for in Him do I trust.

"As to the other point, you say that your powers are not extensive enough

to allow your acceptance of the offer I make you. Nevertheless, if I am

not mistaken, I have remarked in passing--for princes look very close to

words--that you would be content if I would give you money in place of

men, and that your powers speak only of demanding a certain proportion of

infantry and another of cavalry. I believe this would be, as you say, an

equivalent, 'secundum quod'. But I say this only because you govern

yourselves so precisely by the measure of your instructions. Nevertheless

I don't wish to contest these points with you. For very often 'dum Romae

disputatur Saguntum perit.' Nevertheless, it would be well for you to

decide; and, in any event, I do not think it good that you should all

take your departure, but that, on the contrary, you should leave some of

your number here. Otherwise it would at once be said that all was broken

off, and that I had chosen to nothing for you; and with this the bad

would comfort themselves, and the good would be much discouraged.

"Touching the last point of your demand--according to which you desire a

personage of quality--I know, gentlemen, that you do not always agree

very well among yourselves, and that it would be good for you to have

some one to effect such agreement. For this reason I have always

intended, so soon as we should have made our treaty, to send a lord of

name and authority to reside with you, to assist you in governing, and to

aid, with his advice, in the better direction of your affairs.

"Would to God that Antwerp were relieved! Certainly I should be very

glad, and very well content to lose all that I am now expending if that

city could be saved. I hope, nevertheless, if it can hold out six weeks

longer, that we shall see something good. Already the two thousand men of

General Norris have crossed, or are crossing, every day by companies. I

will hasten the rest as much as possible; and I assure you, gentlemen,

that I will spare no diligence. Nevertheless you may, if you choose,

retire with my council, and see if together you can come to some good

conclusion."

Thus spoke Elizabeth, like the wise, courageous, and very parsimonious

princess that she was. Alas, it was too true, that Saguntum was perishing

while the higgling went on at Rome. Had those two thousand under Sir John

Norris and the rest of the four thousand but gone a few weeks earlier,

how much happier might have been the result!

Nevertheless, it was thought in England that Antwerp would still hold

out; and, meantime, a treaty for its relief, in combination with another

for permanent assistance to the Provinces, was agreed upon between the

envoys and the lords of council.

On the 12th August, Menin presented himself at Nonesuch at the head of

his colleagues, and, in a formal speech, announced the arrangement which

had thus been entered into, subject to the approval of the States. Again

Elizabeth, whose "tongue," in the homely phrase of the Netherlanders,

"was wonderfully well hung," replied with energy and ready eloquence.

"You see, gentlemen," she said, "that I have opened the door; that I am

embarking once for all with you in a war against the King of Spain. Very

well, I am not anxious about the matter. I hope that God will aid us, and

that we shall strike a good blow in your cause. Nevertheless, I pray you,

with all my heart, and by the affection you bear me, to treat my soldiers

well; for they are my own Englishmen, whom I love as I do myself.

Certainly it would be a great cruelty, if you should treat them ill,

since they are about to hazard their lives so freely in your defence, and

I am sure that my request in this regard will be received by you as it

deserves.

"In the next place, as you know that I am sending, as commander of these

English troops, an honest gentleman, who deserves most highly for his

experience in arms, so I am also informed that you have on your side a

gentleman of great valour. I pray you, therefore, that good care be taken

lest there be misunderstanding between these two, which might prevent

them from agreeing well together, when great exploits of war are to be

taken in hand. For if that should happen--which God forbid--my succour

would be rendered quite useless to you. I name Count Hohenlo, because him

alone have I heard mentioned. But I pray you to make the same

recommendation to all the colonels and gentlemen in your army; for I

should be infinitely sad, if misadventures should arise from such a

cause, for your interest and my honour are both at stake.

"In the third place, I beg you, at your return, to make a favourable

report of me, and to thank the States, in my behalf, for their great

offers, which I esteem so highly as to be unable to express my thanks.

Tell them that I shall remember them for ever. I consider it a great

honour, that from the commencement, you have ever been so faithful to me,

and that with such great constancy you have preferred me to all other

princes, and have chosen me for your Queen. And chiefly do I thank the

gentlemen of Holland and Zeeland, who, as I have been informed, were the

first who so singularly loved me. And so on my own part I will have a

special care of them, and will do my best to uphold them by every

possible means, as I will do all the rest who have put their trust in me.

But I name Holland and Zeeland more especially, because they have been so

constant and faithful in their efforts to assist the rest in shaking off

the yoke of the enemy.

"Finally, gentlemen, I beg you to assure the States that I do not decline

the sovereignty of your country from any dread of the King of Spain. For

I take God to witness that I fear him not; and I hope, with the blessing

of God, to make such demonstrations against him, that men shall say the

Queen of England does not fear the Spaniards."

Elizabeth then smote herself upon the breast, and cried, with great

energy, "'Illa que virgo viri;' and is it not quite the same to you, even

if I do not assume the sovereignty, since I intend to protect you, and

since therefore the effects will be the same? It is true that the

sovereignty would serve to enhance my grandeur, but I am content to do

without it, if you, upon your own part, will only do your duty.

"For myself, I promise you, in truth, that so long as I live, and even to

my last sigh, I will never forsake you. Go home and tell this boldly to

the States which sent you hither."

Menin then replied with fresh expressions of thanks and compliments, and

requested, in conclusion, that her Majesty would be pleased to send, as

soon as possible, a personage of quality to the Netherlands.

"Gentlemen," replied Elizabeth, "I intend to do this, so soon as our

treaty shall be ratified, for, in contrary case, the King of Spain,

seeing your government continue on its present footing, would do nothing

but laugh at us. Certainly I do not mean this year to provide him with so

fine a banquet."

ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:

Anarchy which was deemed inseparable from a non-regal form

Dismay of our friends and the gratification of our enemies

Her teeth black, her bosom white and liberally exposed (Eliz.)

Holland was afraid to give a part, although offering the whole

Resolved thenceforth to adopt a system of ignorance

Say "'tis pity he is not an Englishman"

Seeking protection for and against the people

Three hundred and upwards are hanged annually in London

We must all die once

Wrath of bigots on both sides

HISTORY OF THE UNITED NETHERLANDS

From the Death of William the Silent to the Twelve Year's Truce--1609

By John Lothrop Motley

History United Netherlands, Volume 43, 1585

CHAPTER VI., Part 2.

Sir John Norris sent to Holland--Parsimony of Elizabeth--Energy of

Davison--Protracted Negotiations--Friendly Sentiments of Count

Maurice--Letters from him and Louisa de Coligny--Davison vexed by

the Queen's Caprice--Dissatisfaction of Leicester--His vehement

Complaints--The Queen's Avarice--Perplexity of Davison--Manifesto

of Elizabeth--Sir Philip Sidney--His Arrival at Flushing.

The envoys were then dismissed, and soon afterwards a portion of the

deputation took their departure from the Netherlands with the proposed

treaty. It was however, as we know, quite too late for Saguntum. Two days

after the signing of the treaty, the remaining envoys were at the palace

of Nonesuch, in conference with the Earl of Leicester, when a gentleman

rushed suddenly into the apartment, exclaiming with great manifestations

of anger:

"Antwerp has fallen! A treaty has been signed with the Prince of Parma.

Aldegonde is the author of it all. He is the culprit, who has betrayed

us;" with many more expressions of vehement denunciation.

The Queen was disappointed, but stood firm. She had been slow in taking

her resolution, but she was unflinching when her mind was made up.

Instead of retreating from her, position, now that it became doubly

dangerous, she advanced several steps nearer towards her allies. For it

was obvious, if more precious time should be lost, that Holland and

Zeeland would share the fate of Antwerp. Already the belief, that, with

the loss of that city, all had been lost, was spreading both in the

Provinces and in England, and Elizabeth felt that the time had indeed

come to confront the danger.

Meantime the intrigues of the enemy in the independent Provinces were

rife. Blunt Roger Williams wrote in very plain language to Walsingham, a

very few days after the capitulation of Antwerp:

"If her Majesty means to have Holland and Zeeland," said he, "she must

resolve presently. Aldegonde hath promised the enemy to bring them to

compound. Here arrived already his ministers which knew all his dealings

about Antwerp from first to last. Count Maurice is governed altogether by

Villiers, and Villiers was never worse for the English than at this hour.

To be short, the people say in general, they will accept a peace, unless

her Majesty do sovereign them presently. All the men of war will be at

her Highness' devotion, if they be in credit in time. What you do, it

must be done presently, for I do assure your honour there is large offers

presented unto them by the enemies. If her Majesty deals not roundly and

resolutely with them now, it will be too late two months hence."

Her Majesty meant to deal roundly and resolutely. Her troops had already

gone in considerable numbers. She wrote encouraging letters with her own

hand to the States, imploring them not to falter now, even though the

great city had fallen. She had long since promised never to desert them,

and she was, if possible, more determined than ever to redeem her pledge.

She especially recommended to their consideration General Norris,

commander of the forces that had been despatched to the relief of

Antwerp.

A most accomplished officer, sprung of a house renowned for its romantic

valour, Sir John was the second of the six sons of Lord Norris of Rycot,

all soldiers of high reputation, "chickens of Mars," as an old writer

expressed himself. "Such a bunch of brethren for eminent achievement,"

said he, "was never seen. So great their states and stomachs that they

often jostled with others." Elizabeth called their mother, "her own

crow;" and the darkness of her hair and visage was thought not unbecoming

to her martial issue, by whom it had been inherited. Daughter of Lord

Williams of Tame, who had been keeper of the Tower in the time of

Elizabeth's imprisonment, she had been affectionate and serviceable to

the Princess in the hour of her distress, and had been rewarded with her

favour in the days of her grandeur. We shall often meet this crow-black

Norris, and his younger brother Sir Edward--the most daring soldiers of

their time, posters of sea and land--wherever the buffeting was closest,

or adventure the wildest on ship-board or shore, for they were men who

combined much of the knight-errantry of a vanishing age with the more

practical and expansive spirit of adventure that characterized the new

epoch.

Nor was he a stranger in the Netherlands. "The gentleman to whom we have

committed the government of the forces going to the relief of Antwerp,"

said Elizabeth, "has already given you such proofs of his affection by

the good services he has rendered you, that without recommendation on our

part, he should stand already recommended. Nevertheless, in respect for

his quality, the house from which he is descended, and the valour which

he has manifested in your own country, we desire to tell you that we hold

him dear, and that he deserves also to be dear to you."

When the fall of Antwerp was certain, the Queen sent Davison, who had

been for a brief period in England, back again to his post. "We have

learned," she said in the letter which she sent by that envoy; "with very

great regret of the surrender of Antwerp. Fearing lest some apprehension

should take possession of the people's mind in consequence, and that some

dangerous change might ensue, we send you our faithful and well-beloved

Davison to represent to you how much we have your affairs at heart, and

to say that we are determined to forget nothing that may be necessary to

your preservation. Assure yourselves that we shall never fail to

accomplish all that he may promise you in our behalf."

Yet, notwithstanding the gravity of the situation, the thorough

discussion that had taken place of the whole matter, and the enormous

loss which had resulted from the money-saving insanity upon both sides,

even then the busy devil of petty economy was not quite exorcised.

Several precious weeks were wasted in renewed chafferings. The Queen was

willing that the permanent force should now be raised to five thousand

foot and one thousand horse--the additional sixteen, hundred men being

taken from the Antwerp relieving-force--but she insisted that the

garrisons for the cautionary towns should be squeezed out of this general

contingent. The States, on the contrary, were determined to screw these

garrisons out of her grip, as an additional subsidy. Each party

complained with reason of the other's closeness. No doubt the states were

shrewd bargainers, but it would have been difficult for the sharpest

Hollander that ever sent a cargo of herrings to Cadiz, to force open

Elizabeth's beautiful hand when she chose to shut it close. Walsingham

and Leicester were alternately driven to despair by the covetousness of

the one party or the other.

It was still uncertain what "personage of quality" was to go to the

Netherlands in the Queen's name, to help govern the country. Leicester

had professed his readiness to risk his life, estates, and reputation, in

the cause, and the States particularly desired his appointment. "The name

of your Excellency is so very agreeable to this people," said they in a

letter to the Earl, "as to give promise of a brief and happy end to this

grievous and almost immortal war." The Queen was, or affected to be,

still undecided as to the appointment. While waiting week after week for

the ratifications of the treaty from Holland, affairs were looking gloomy

at home, and her Majesty was growing very uncertain in her temper.

"I see not her Majesty disposed to use the service of the Earl of

Leicester," wrote Walsingham. "I suppose the lot of government will light

on Lord Gray. I would to God the ability of his purse were answerable to

his sufficiency otherwise." This was certainly a most essential

deficiency on the part of Lord Gray, and it will soon be seen that the

personage of quality to be selected as chief in the arduous and

honourable enterprise now on foot, would be obliged to rely quite as much

on that same ability of purse as upon the sufficiency of his brain or

arm. The Queen did not mean to send her favourite forth to purchase

anything but honour in the Netherlands; and it was not the Provinces only

that were likely to struggle against her parsimony. Yet that parsimony

sprang from a nobler motive than the mere love of pelf. Dangers

encompassed her on every side, and while husbanding her own exchequer,

she was saving her subjects' resources. "Here we are but book-worms,"

said Walsingham, "yet from sundry quarters we hear of great practices

against this poor crown. The revolt in Scotland is greatly feared, and

that out of hand."

Scotland, France, Spain, these were dangerous enemies and neighbours to a

maiden Queen, who had a rebellious Ireland to deal with on one side the

channel, and Alexander of Parma on the other.

Davison experienced great inconvenience and annoyance before the definite

arrangements could be made. There is no doubt that the Spanish party had

made great progress since the fall of Antwerp. Roger Williams was right

in advising the Queen to deal "roundly and resolutely" with the States,

and to "sovereign them presently."

They had need of being sovereigned, for it must be confessed that the

self-government which prevailed at that moment was very like no

government. The death of Orange, the treachery of Henry III., the

triumphs of Parma, disastrous facts, treading rapidly upon each other,

had produced a not very unnatural effect. The peace-at-any-price party

was struggling hard for the ascendancy, and the Spanish partizans were

doing their best to hold up to suspicion the sharp practice of the

English Queen. She was even accused of underhand dealing with Spain, to

the disadvantage of the Provinces; so much had slander, anarchy, and

despair, been able to effect. The States were reluctant to sign those

articles with Elizabeth which were absolutely necessary to their

salvation.

"In how doubtful and uncertain terms I found things at my coming hither,"

wrote Davison to Burghley, "how thwarted and delayed since for a

resolution, and with what conditions, and for what reasons I have been

finally drawn to conclude with them as I have done, your Lordship may

perceive by that I have written to Mr. Secretary. The chief difficulty

has rested upon the point of entertaining the garrisons within the towns

of assurance, over and besides the five thousand footmen and one thousand

horse."

This, as Davison proceeded to observe, was considered a 'sine qua non' by

the States, so that, under the perilous circumstances in which both

countries were placed, he had felt it his duty to go forward as far as

possible to meet their demands. Davison always did his work veraciously,

thoroughly, and resolutely; and it was seldom that his advice, in all

matters pertaining to Netherland matters, did not prove the very best

that could be offered. No man knew better than he the interests and the

temper of both countries.

The imperious Elizabeth was not fond of being thwarted, least of all by

any thing savouring of the democratic principle, and already there was

much friction between the Tudor spirit of absolutism and the rough

"mechanical" nature with which it was to ally itself in the Netherlands.

The economical Elizabeth was not pleased at being overreached in a

bargain; and, at a moment when she thought herself doing a magnanimous

act, she was vexed at the cavilling with which her generosity was

received. "'Tis a manner of proceeding," said Walsingham, "not to be

allowed of, and may very well be termed mechanical, considering that her

Majesty seeketh no interest in that country--as Monsieur and the French

King did--but only their good and benefit, without regard had of the

expenses of her treasure and the hazard of her subjects' lives; besides

throwing herself into a present war for their sakes with the greatest

prince and potentate in Europe. But seeing the government of those

countries resteth in the hands of merchants and advocates--the one

regarding profit, the other standing upon vantage of quirks--there is no

better fruit to be looked to from them."

Yet it was, after all, no quirk in those merchants and advocates to urge

that the Queen was not going to war with the great potentate for their

sakes alone. To Elizabeth's honour, she did thoroughly comprehend that

the war of the Netherlands was the war of England, of Protestantism, and

of European liberty, and that she could no longer, without courting her

own destruction, defer taking a part in active military operations. It

was no quirk, then, but solid reasoning, for the States to regard the

subject in the same light. Holland and England were embarked in one boat,

and were to sink or swim together. It was waste of time to wrangle so

fiercely over pounds and shillings, but the fault was not to be

exclusively imputed to the one side or the other. There were bitter

recriminations, particularly on the part of Elizabeth, for it was not

safe to touch too closely either the pride or the pocket of that frugal

and despotic heroine. "The two thousand pounds promised by the States to

Norris upon the muster of the two thousand volunteers," said Walsingham,

"were not paid. Her Majesty is not a little offended therewith, seeing

how little care they have to yield her satisfaction, which she imputeth

to proceed rather from contempt, than from necessity. If it should fall

out, however, to be such as by them is pretended, then doth she conceive

her bargain to be very ill made, to join her fortune with so weak and

broken an estate." Already there were indications that the innocent might

be made to suffer for the short-comings of the real culprits; nor would

it be, the first time, or by any means the last, for Davison to appear in

the character of a scape-goat.

"Surely, sir," continued Mr. Secretary, "it is a thing greatly to be

feared that the contributions they will yield will fall not more true in

paper than in payment; which if it should so happen, it would turn some

to blame, whereof you among others are to bear your part."

And thus the months of September and of October wore away, and the

ratifications of the treaty had not arrived from the Netherlands.

Elizabeth became furious, and those of the Netherland deputation who had

remained in England were at their wits' end to appease her choler. No

news arrived for many weeks. Those were not the days of steam and

magnetic telegraphs--inventions by which the nature of man and the aspect

of history seem altered--and the Queen had nothing for it but to fret,

and the envoys to concert with her ministers expedients to mitigate her

spleen. Towards the end of the month, the commissioners chartered a

vessel which they despatched for news to Holland. On his way across the

sea the captain was hailed on the 28th October by a boat, in which one

Hans Wyghans was leisurely proceeding to England with Netherland

despatches dated on the 5th of the same month. This was the freshest

intelligence that had yet been received.

So soon as the envoys were put in possession of the documents, they

obtained an audience of the Queen. This was the last day of October.

Elizabeth read her letters, and listened to the apologies made by the

deputies for the delay with anything but a benignant countenance. Then,

with much vehemence of language, and manifestations of ill-temper, she

expressed her displeasure at the dilatoriness of the States. Having sent

so many troops, and so many gentlemen of quality, she had considered the

whole affair concluded.

"I have been unhandsomely treated," she said, "and not as comports with a

prince of my quality. My inclination for your support--because you show

yourselves unworthy of so great benefits--will be entirely destroyed,

unless you deal with me and mine more worthily for the future than you

have done in the past. Through my great and especial affection for your

welfare, I had ordered the Earl of Leicester to proceed to the

Netherlands, and conduct your affairs; a man of such quality as all the

world knows, and one whom I love, as if he were my own brother. He was

getting himself ready in all diligence, putting himself in many perils

through the practices of the enemy, and if I should have reason to

believe that he would not be respected there according to his due, I

should be indeed offended. He and many others are not going thither to

advance their own affairs, to make themselves rich, or because they have

not means enough to live magnificently at home. They proceed to the

Netherlands from pure affection for your cause. This is the case, too,

with many other of my subjects, all dear to me, and of much worth. For I

have sent a fine heap of folk thither--in all, with those his Excellency

is taking with him, not under ten thousand soldiers of the English

nation. This is no small succour, and no little unbaring of this realm of

mine, threatened as it is with war from many quarters. Yet I am seeking

no sovereignty, nor anything else prejudicial to the freedom of your

country. I wish only, in your utmost need, to help you out of this

lamentable war, to maintain for you liberty of conscience, and to see

that law and justice are preserved."

All this, and more, with great eagerness of expression and gesture, was

urged by the Queen, much to the discomfiture of the envoys. In vain they

attempted to modify and to explain. Their faltering excuses were swept

rapidly away upon the current of royal wrath; until at last Elizabeth

stormed herself into exhaustion and comparative tranquillity. She then

dismissed them with an assurance that her goodwill towards the States was

not diminished, as would be found to be the case, did they not continue

to prove themselves unworthy of her favour that a permanent force of five

thousand foot and one thousand horse should serve in the Provinces at the

Queen's expense; and that the cities of Flushing and Brill should be

placed in her Majesty's hands until the entire reimbursement of the debt

thus incurred by the States. Elizabeth also--at last overcoming her

reluctance--agreed that the force necessary to garrison these towns

should form an additional contingent, instead of being deducted from the

general auxiliary force.

Count Maurice of Nassau had been confirmed by the States of Holland and

Zeeland as permanent stadholder of those provinces. This measure excited

some suspicion on the part of Leicester, who, as it was now understood,

was the "personage of quality" to be sent to the Netherlands as

representative of the Queen's authority. "Touching the election of Count

Maurice," said the Earl, "I hope it will be no impairing of the authority

heretofore allotted to me, for if it will be, I shall tarry but awhile."

Nothing, however, could be more frank or chivalrously devoted than the

language of Maurice to the Queen. "Madam, if I have ever had occasion,"

he wrote, "to thank God for his benefits, I confess that it was when,

receiving in all humility the letters with which it pleased your Majesty

to honour me, I learned that the great disaster of my lord and father's

death had not diminished the debonaire affection and favour which it has

always pleased your Majesty to manifest to my father's house. It has been

likewise grateful to me to learn that your Majesty, surrounded by so many

great and important affairs, had been pleased to approve the command

which the States-General have conferred upon me. I am indeed grieved that

my actions cannot correspond with the ardent desire which I feel to serve

your Majesty and these Provinces, for which I hope that my extreme youth

will be accepted as an excuse. And although I find myself feeble enough

for the charge thus imposed upon me, yet God will assist my efforts to

supply by diligence and sincere intention the defect of the other

qualities requisite for my thorough discharge of my duty to the

contentment of your Majesty. To fulfil these obligations, which are

growing greater day by day, I trust to prove by my actions that I will

never spare either my labour or life."

When it was found that the important town of Flushing was required as

part of the guaranty to the Queen, Maurice, as hereditary seignor and

proprietor of the place--during the captivity of his elder brother in

Spain--signified his concurrence in the transfer, together with the most

friendly feelings towards the Earl of Leicester, and to Sir Philip

Sidney, appointed English governor of the town. He wrote to Davison, whom

he called "one of the best and most certain friends that the house of

Nassau possessed in England," begging that he would recommend the

interests of the family to the Queen, "whose favour could do more than

anything else in the world towards maintaining what remained of the

dignity of their house." After solemn deliberation with his step-mother,

Louisa de Coligny, and the other members of his family, he made a formal

announcement of adhesion on the part of the House of Nassau to the

arrangements concluded with the English government, and asked the

benediction of God upon the treaty. While renouncing, for the moment, any

compensation for his consent to the pledging of Flushing his "patrimonial

property, and a place of such great importance"--he expressed a

confidence that the long services of his father, as well as those which

he himself hoped to render, would meet in time with "condign

recognition." He requested the Earl of Leicester to consider the

friendship which had existed between himself and the late Prince of

Orange, as an hereditary affection to be continued to the children, and

he entreated the Earl to do him the honour in future to hold him as a

son, and to extend to him counsel and authority; declaring, on his part,

that he should ever deem it an honour to be allowed to call him father.

And in order still more strongly to confirm his friendship, he begged Sir

Philip Sidney to consider him as his brother, and as his companion in

arms, promising upon his own part the most faithful friendship. In the

name of Louisa de Coligny, and of his whole family, he also particularly

recommended to the Queen the interests of the eldest brother of the

house, Philip William, "who had been so long and so iniquitously detained

captive in Spain," and begged that, in case prisoners of war of high rank

should fall into the hands of the English commanders, they might be

employed as a means of effecting the liberation of that much-injured

Prince. He likewise desired the friendly offices of the Queen to protect

the principality of Orange against the possible designs of the French

monarch, and intimated that occasions might arise in which the

confiscated estates of the family in Burgundy might be recovered through

the influence of the Swiss cantons, particularly those of the Grisons and

of Berne.

And, in conclusion, in case the Queen should please--as both Count

Maurice and the Princess of Orange desired with all their hearts--to

assume the sovereignty of these Provinces, she was especially entreated

graciously to observe those suggestions regarding the interests of the

House of Nassau, which had been made in the articles of the treaty.

Thus the path had been smoothed, mainly through the indefatigable energy

of Davison. Yet that envoy was not able to give satisfaction to his

imperious and somewhat whimsical mistress, whose zeal seemed to cool in

proportion to the readiness with which the obstacles to her wishes were

removed. Davison was, with reason, discontented. He had done more than

any other man either in England or the Provinces, to bring about a hearty

cooperation in the common cause, and to allay mutual heart-burnings and

suspicions. He had also, owing to the negligence of the English treasurer

for the Netherlands, and the niggardliness of Elizabeth, been placed in a

position, of great financial embarrassment. His situation was very

irksome.

"I mused at the sentence you sent me," he wrote, "for I know no cause her

Majesty hath to shrink at her charges hitherto. The treasure she hath yet

disbursed here is not above five or six thousand pounds, besides that

which I have been obliged to take up for the saving of her honour, and

necessity of her service, in danger otherwise of some notable disgrace. I

will not, for shame, say how I have been left here to myself."

The delay in the formal appointment of Leicester, and, more particularly,

of the governors for the cautionary towns, was the cause of great

confusion and anarchy in the transitional condition of the country. "The

burden I am driven to sustain," said Davison, "doth utterly weary me. If

Sir Philip Sidney were here, and if my Lord of Leicester follow not all

the sooner, I would use her Majesty's liberty to return home. If her

Majesty think me worthy the reputation of a poor, honest, and loyal

servant, I have that contents me. For the rest, I wish

'Vivere sine invidia, mollesque inglorius annos

Egigere, amicitias et mihi jungere pares.'"

There was something almost prophetic in the tone which this faithful

public servant--to whom, on more than one occasion, such hard measure was

to be dealt--habitually adopted in his private letters and conversation.

He did his work, but he had not his reward; and he was already weary of

place without power, and industry without recognition.

"For mine own particular," he said, "I will say with the poet,

'Crede mihi, bene qui latuit bene vixit,

Et intra fortunam debet quisque manere suam.'"

For, notwithstanding the avidity with which Elizabeth had sought the

cautionary towns, and the fierceness with which she had censured the

tardiness of the States, she seemed now half inclined to drop the prize

which she had so much coveted, and to imitate the very languor which she

had so lately rebuked. "She hath what she desired," said Davison, "and

might yet have more, if this content her not. Howsoever you value the

places at home, they are esteemed here, by such as know them best, no

little increase to her Majesty's honour, surety, and greatness, if she be

as careful to keep them as happy in getting them. Of this, our cold

beginning doth already make me jealous."

Sagacious and resolute Princess as she was, she showed something of

feminine caprice upon this grave occasion. Not Davison alone, but her

most confidential ministers and favourites at home, were perplexed and

provoked by her misplaced political coquetries. But while the alternation

of her hot and cold fits drove her most devoted courtiers out of

patience, there was one symptom that remained invariable throughout all

her paroxysms, the rigidity with which her hand was locked. Walsingham,

stealthy enough when an advantage was to be gained by subtlety, was

manful and determined in his dealings with his friends; and he had more

than once been offended with Elizabeth's want of frankness in these

transactions.

"I find you grieved, and not without cause," he wrote to Davison, "in

respect to the over thwart proceedings as well there as here. The

disorders in those countries would be easily redressed if we could take a

thoroughly resolute course here--a matter that men may rather pray for

than hope for. It is very doubtful whether the action now in hand will be

accompanied by very hard success, unless they of the country there may be

drawn to bear the greatest part of the burden of the wars."

And now the great favourite of all had received the appointment which he

coveted. The Earl of Leicester was to be Commander-in-Chief of her

Majesty's forces in the Netherlands, and representative of her authority

in those countries, whatever that office might prove to be. The nature of

his post was anomalous from the beginning. It was environed with

difficulties, not the least irritating of which proceeded from the

captious spirit of the Queen. The Earl was to proceed in great pomp to

Holland, but the pomp was to be prepared mainly at his own expense.

Besides the auxiliary forces that had been shipped during the latter

period of the year, Leicester was raising a force of lancers, from four

to eight hundred in number; but to pay for that levy he was forced to

mortgage his own property, while the Queen not only refused to advance

ready money, but declined endorsing his bills.

It must be confessed that the Earl's courtship of Elizabeth was anything

at that moment but a gentle dalliance. In those thorny regions of finance

were no beds of asphodel or amaranthine bowers. There was no talk but of

troopers, saltpetre, and sulphur, of books of assurance, and bills of

exchange; and the aspect of Elizabeth, when the budget was under

discussion, must effectually have neutralized for the time any very

tender sentiment. The sharpness with which she clipped Leicester's

authority, when authority was indispensable to his dignity, and the heavy

demands upon his resources that were the result of her avarice, were

obstacles more than enough to the calm fruition of his triumphs. He had

succeeded, in appearance at least, in the great object of his ambition,

this appointment to the Netherlands; but the appointment was no sinecure,

and least of all a promising pecuniary speculation. Elizabeth had told

the envoys, with reason, that she was not sending forth that man--whom

she loved as a brother--in order that he might make himself rich. On the

contrary, the Earl seemed likely to make himself comparatively poor

before he got to the Provinces, while his political power, at the moment,

did not seem of more hopeful growth.

Leicester had been determined and consistent in this great enterprize

from the beginning. He felt intensely the importance of the crisis. He

saw that the time had come for swift and uncompromising action, and the

impatience with which he bore the fetters imposed upon him may be easily

conceived.

"The cause is such," he wrote to Walsingham, "that I had as lief be dead

as be in the case I shall be in if this restraint hold for taking the

oath there, or if some more authority be not granted than I see her

Majesty would I should have. I trust you all will hold hard for this, or

else banish me England withal. I have sent you the books to be signed by

her Majesty. I beseech you return them with all haste, for I get no money

till they be under seal."

But her Majesty would not put them under her seal, much to the

favourite's discomfiture.

"Your letter yieldeth but cold answer," he wrote, two days afterwards.

"Above all things yet that her Majesty doth stick at, I marvel most at

her refusal to sign my book of assurance; for there passeth nothing in

the earth against her profit by that act, nor any good to me but to

satisfy the creditors, who were more scrupulous than needs. I did

complain to her of those who did refuse to lend me money, and she was

greatly offended with them. But if her Majesty were to stay this, if I

were half seas over, I must of necessity come back again, for I may not

go without money. I beseech, if the matter be refused by her, bestow a

post on me to Harwich. I lie this night at Sir John Peters', and but for

this doubt I had been to-morrow at Harwich. I pray God make you all that

be counsellors plain and direct to the furtherance of all good service

for her Majesty and the realm; and if it be the will of God to plague us

that go, and you that tarry, for our sins, yet let us not be negligent to

seek to please the Lord."

The Earl was not negligent at any rate in seeking to please the Queen,

but she was singularly hard to please. She had never been so uncertain in

her humours as at this important crisis. She knew, and had publicly

stated as much, that she was "embarking in a war with the greatest

potentate in Europe;" yet now that the voyage had fairly commenced, and

the waves were rolling around her, she seemed anxious to put back to the

shore. For there was even a whisper of peace-negotiations, than which

nothing could have been more ill-timed. "I perceive by your message,"

said Leicester to Walsingham, "that your peace with Spain will go fast

on, but this is not the way." Unquestionably it was not the way, and the

whisper was, for the moment at least, suppressed. Meanwhile Leicester had

reached Harwich, but the post "bestowed on him," contained, as usual, but

cold comfort. He was resolved, however, to go manfully forward, and do

the work before him, until the enterprise should prove wholly

impracticable. It is by the light afforded by the secret never-published

correspondence of the period with which we are now occupied, that the

true characteristics of Elizabeth, the Earl of Leicester, and other

prominent personages, must be scanned, and the study is most important,

for it was by those characteristics, in combination with other human

elements embodied in distant parts of Christendom, that the destiny of

the world was determined. In that age, more than in our own perhaps, the

influence of the individual was widely and intensely felt. Historical

chymistry is only rendered possible by a detection of the subtle

emanations, which it was supposed would for ever elude analysis, but

which survive in those secret, frequently ciphered intercommunications.

Philip II., William of Orange, Queen Elizabeth, Alexander Farnese, Robert

Dudley, never dreamed--when disclosing their inmost thoughts to their

trusted friends at momentous epochs--that the day would come on earth

when those secrets would be no longer hid from the patient enquirer after

truth. Well for those whose reputations before the judgment-seat of

history appear even comparatively pure, after impartial comparison of

their motives with their deeds.

"For mine own part, Mr. Secretary," wrote Leicester, "I am resolved to do

that which shall be fit for a poor man's honour, and honestly to obey her

Majesty's commandment. Let the rest fall out to others, it shall not

concern me. I mean to assemble myself to the camp, where my authority

must wholly lie, and will there do that which in good reason and duty I

shall be bound to do. I am sorry that her Majesty doth deal in this sort,

and if content to overthrow so willingly her own cause. If there can be

means to salve this sore, I will. If not,--I tell you what shall become

of me, as truly as God lives."

Yet it is remarkable, that, in spite of this dark intimation, the Earl,

after all, did not state what was to become of him if the sore was not

salved. He was, however, explicit enough as to the causes of his grief,

and very vehement in its manifestations. "Another matter which shall

concern me deeply," he said, "and all the subjects there, is now by you

to be carefully considered, which is--money. I find that the money is

already gone, and this now given to the treasurer will do no more than

pay to the end of the month. I beseech you look to it, for by the Lord! I

will bear no more so miserable burdens; for if I have no money to pay

them, let them come home, or what else. I will not starve them, nor stay

them. There was never gentleman nor general so sent out as I am; and if

neither Queen nor council care to help it, but leave men desperate, as I

see men shall be, that inconvenience will follow which I trust in the

Lord I shall be free of."

He then used language about himself, singularly resembling the

phraseology employed by Elizabeth concerning him, when she was scolding

the Netherland commissioners for the dilatoriness and parsimony of the

States.

"For mine own part," he said, "I have taken upon me this voyage, not as a

desperate nor forlorn man, but as one as well contented with his place

and calling at home as any subject was ever. My cause was not, nor is,

any other than the Lord's and the Queen's. If the Queen fail, yet must I

trust in the Lord, and on Him, I see, I am wholly to depend. I can say no

more, but pray to God that her Majesty never send General again as I am

sent. And yet I will do what I can for her and my country."

The Earl had raised a choice body of lancers to accompany him to the

Netherlands, but the expense of the levy had come mainly upon his own

purse. The Queen had advanced five thousand pounds, which was much less

than the requisite amount, while for the balance required, as well as for

other necessary expenses, she obstinately declined to furnish Leicester

with funds, even refusing him, at last, a temporary loan. She violently

accused him of cheating her, reclaimed money which he had wrung from her

on good security, and when he had repaid the sum, objected to give him a

discharge. As for receiving anything by way of salary, that was quite out

of the question. At that moment he would have been only too happy to be

reimbursed for what he was already out of pocket. Whether Elizabeth loved

Leicester as a brother, or better than a brother, may be a historical

question, but it is no question at all that she loved money better than

she did Leicester. Unhappy the man, whether foe or favourite, who had

pecuniary transactions with her Highness.

"I am sorry," said the Earl, "that her Majesty hath so hard a conceit of

me, that I should go about to cozen her, as though I had got a fee simple

from her, and had it not before, or that I had not had her full release

for payment of the money I borrowed. I pray God, any that did put such

scruple in her, have not deceived her more than I have done. I thank God

I have a clear conscience for deceiving her, and for money matters. I

think I may justly say I have been the only cause of more gain to her

coffers than all her chequer-men have been. But so is the hap of some,

that all they do is nothing, and others that do nothing, do all, and have

all the thanks. But I would this were all the grief I carry with me; but

God is my comfort, and on Him I cast all, for there is no surety in this

world beside. What hope of help can I have, finding her Majesty so strait

with myself as she is? I did trust that--the cause being hers and this

realm's--if I could have gotten no money of her merchants, she would not

have refused to have lent money on so easy prized land as mine, to have

been gainer and no loser by it. Her Majesty, I see, will make trial of me

how I love her, and what will discourage me from her service. But

resolved am I that no worldly respect shall draw me back from my faithful

discharge of my duty towards her, though she shall show to hate me, as it

goeth very near; for I find no love or favour at all. And I pray you to

remember that I have not had one penny of her Majesty towards all these

charges of mine--not one penny-and, by all truth, I have already laid out

above five thousand pounds. Her Majesty appointed eight thousand pounds

for the levy, which was after the rate of four hundred horse, and, upon

my fidelity, there is shipped, of horse of service, eight hundred, so

that there ought eight thousand more to have been paid me. No general

that ever went that was not paid to the uttermost of these things before

he went, but had cash for his provision, which her Majesty would not

allow me--not one groat. Well, let all this go, it is like I shall be the

last shall bear this, and some must suffer for the people. Good Mr.

Secretary, let her Majesty know this, for I deserve God-a-mercy, at the

least."

Leicester, to do him justice, was thoroughly alive to the importance of

the Crisis. On political principle, at any rate, he was a firm supporter

of Protestantism, and even of Puritanism; a form of religion which

Elizabeth detested, and in which, with keen instinct, she detected a

mutinous element against the divine right of kings. The Earl was quite

convinced of the absolute necessity that England should take up the

Netherland matter most vigorously, on pain of being herself destroyed.

All the most sagacious counsellors of Elizabeth were day by day more and

more confirmed in this opinion, and were inclined heartily to support the

new Lieutenant-General. As for Leicester himself, while fully conscious

of his own merits, and of his firm intent to do his duty, he was also

grateful to those who were willing to befriend him in his arduous

enterprise.

"I have received a letter from my Lord Willoughby," he said, "to my

seeming, as wise a letter as I have read a great while, and not unfit for

her Majesty's sight. I pray God open her eyes, that they may behold her

present estate indeed, and the wonderful means that God doth offer unto

her. If she lose these opportunities, who can look for other but

dishonour and destruction? My Lord Treasurer hath also written me a most

hearty and comfortable letter touching this voyage, not only in showing

the importance of it, both for her Majesty's own safety and the realm's,

but that the whole state of religion doth depend thereon, and therefore

doth faithfully promise his whole and best assistance for the supply of

all wants. I was not a little glad to receive such a letter from him at

this time."

And from on board the 'Amity,' ready to set sail, he expressed his thanks

to Burghley, at finding him so "earnestly bent for the good supply and

maintenance of us poor men sent in her Majesty's service and our

country's."

As for Walsingham, earnestly a defender of the Netherland cause from the

beginning, he was wearied and disgusted with fighting against the Queen's

parsimony and caprice. "He is utterly discouraged," said Leicester to

Burghley, "to deal any more in these causes. I pray God your Lordship

grow not so too; for then all will to the ground; on my poor side

especially."

And to Sir Francis himself, he wrote, even as his vessel was casting off

her moorings:--"I am sorry, Mr. Secretary," he said, "to find you so

discouraged, and that her Majesty doth deem you so partial. And yet my

suits to her Majesty have not of late been so many nor great, while the

greatest, I am sure, are for her Majesty's own service. For my part, I

will discharge my duty as far as my poor ability and capacity shall

serve, and if I shall not have her gracious and princely support and

supply, the lack will be to us, for the present, but the shame and

dishonour will be hers."

And with these parting words the Earl committed himself to the December

seas.

Davison had been meantime doing his best to prepare the way in the

Netherlands for the reception of the English administration. What man

could do, without money and without authority, he had done. The governors

for Flushing and the Brill, Sir Philip Sidney and Sir Thomas Cecil,

eldest son of Lord Burghley, had been appointed, but had not arrived.

Their coming was anxiously looked for, as during the interval the

condition of the garrisons was deplorable. The English treasurer--by some

unaccountable and unpardonable negligence, for which it is to be feared

the Queen was herself to blame--was not upon the spot, and Davison was

driven out of his wits to devise expedients to save the soldiers from

starving.

"Your Lordship has seen by my former letters," wrote the Ambassador to

Burghley from Flushing, "what shift I have been driven to for the relief

of this garrison here, left 'a l'abandon;' without which means they had

all fallen into wild and shameful disorder, to her Majesty's great

disgrace and overthrow of her service. I am compelled, unless I would see

the poor men famish, and her Majesty dishonoured, to try my poor credit

for them."

General Sir John Norris was in the Betuwe, threatening Nvymegen, a town

which he found "not so flexible as he had hoped;" and, as he had but two

thousand men, while Alexander Farnese was thought to be marching upon him

with ten thousand, his position caused great anxiety. Meantime, his

brother, Sir Edward, a hot-headed and somewhat wilful young man, who

"thought that all was too little for him," was giving the sober Davison a

good deal of trouble. He had got himself into a quarrel, both with that

envoy and with Roger Williams, by claiming the right to control military

matters in Flushing until the arrival of Sidney. "If Sir Thomas and Sir

Philip," said Davison, "do not make choice of more discreet, staid, and

expert commanders than those thrust into these places by Mr. Norris, they

will do themselves a great deal of worry, and her Majesty a great deal of

hurt."

As might naturally be expected, the lamentable condition of the English

soldiers, unpaid and starving--according to the report of the Queen's

envoy himself--exercised anything but a salutary influence upon the minds

of the Netherlanders and perpetually fed the hopes of the Spanish

partizans that a composition with Philip and Parma would yet take place.

On the other hand, the States had been far more liberal in raising funds

than the Queen had shown herself to be, and were somewhat indignant at

being perpetually taunted with parsimony by her agents. Davison was

offended by the injustice of Norris in this regard. "The complaints which

the General hath made of the States to her Majesty," said he, "are

without cause, and I think, when your Lordship shall examine it well, you

will find it no little sum they have already disbursed unto him for their

part. Wherein, nevertheless, if they had been looked into, they were

somewhat the more excusable, considering how ill our people at her

Majesty's entertainment were satisfied hitherto--a thing that doth much

prejudice her reputation, and hurt her service."

At last, however, the die had been cast. The Queen, although rejecting

the proposed sovereignty of the Netherlands, had espoused their cause, by

solemn treaty of alliance, and thereby had thrown down the gauntlet to

Spain. She deemed it necessary, therefore, out of respect for the

opinions of mankind, to issue a manifesto of her motives to the world.

The document was published, simultaneously in Dutch, French, English, and

Italian.

In this solemn state-paper she spoke of the responsibility of princes to

the Almighty, of the ancient friendship between England and the

Netherlands, of the cruelty and tyranny of the Spaniards, of their

violation of the liberties of the Provinces, of their hanging, beheading,

banishing without law and against justice, in the space of a few months,

so many of the highest nobles in the land. Although in the beginning of

the cruel persecution, the pretext had been the maintenance of the

Catholic religion, yet it was affirmed they had not failed to exercise

their barbarity upon Catholics also, and even upon ecclesiastics. Of the

principal persons put to death, no one, it was asserted, had been more

devoted to the ancient church than was the brave Count Egmont, who, for

his famous victories in the service of Spain, could never be forgotten in

veracious history any more than could be the cruelty of his execution.

The land had been made desolate, continued the Queen, with fire, sword,

famine, and murder. These misfortunes had ever been bitterly deplored by

friendly nations, and none could more truly regret such sufferings than

did the English, the oldest allies, and familiar neighbours of the

Provinces, who had been as close to them in the olden time by community

of connexion and language, as man and wife. She declared that she had

frequently, by amicable embassies, warned her brother of Spain--speaking

to him like a good, dear sister and neighbour--that unless he restrained

the cruelty of his governors and their soldiers, he was sure to force his

Provinces into allegiance to some other power. She expressed the danger

in which she should be placed if the Spaniards succeeded in establishing

their absolute government in the Netherlands, from which position their

attacks upon England would be incessant. She spoke of the enterprise

favoured and set on foot by the Pope and by Spain, against the kingdom of

Ireland. She alluded to the dismissal of the Spanish envoy, Don

Bernardino de Mendoza, who had been treated by her with great regard for

a long time, but who had been afterwards discovered in league with

certain ill-disposed and seditious subjects of hers, and with publicly

condemned traitors. That envoy had arranged a plot according to which, as

appeared by his secret despatches, an invasion of England by a force of

men, coming partly from Spain, and partly from the Netherlands, might be

successfully managed, and he had even noted down the necessary number of

ships and men, with various other details. Some of the conspirators had

fled, she observed, and were now consorting with Mendoza, who, after his

expulsion from England, had been appointed ambassador in Paris; while

some had been arrested, and had confessed the plot. So soon as this envoy

had been discovered to be the chief of a rebellion and projected

invasion, the Queen had requested him, she said, to leave the kingdom

within a reasonable time, as one who was the object of deadly hatred to

the English people. She had then sent an agent to Spain, in order to

explain the whole transaction. That agent had not been allowed even to

deliver despatches to the King.

When the French had sought, at a previous period, to establish their

authority in Scotland, even as the Spaniards had attempted to do in the

Netherlands, and through the enormous ambition of the House of Guise, to

undertake the invasion of her kingdom, she had frustrated their plots,

even as she meant to suppress these Spanish conspiracies. She spoke of

the Prince of Parma as more disposed by nature to mercy and humanity,

than preceding governors had been, but as unable to restrain the

blood-thirstiness of Spaniards, increased by long indulgence. She avowed,

in assuming the protection of the Netherlands, and in sending her troops

to those countries, but three objects: peace, founded upon the

recognition of religious freedom in the Provinces, restoration of their

ancient political liberties, and security for England. Never could there

be tranquillity, for her own realm until these neighbouring countries

were tranquil. These were her ends and aims, despite all that slanderous

tongues might invent. The world, she observed, was overflowing with

blasphemous libels, calumnies, scandalous pamphlets; for never had the

Devil been so busy in supplying evil tongues with venom against the

professors of the Christian religion.

She added that in a pamphlet, ascribed to the Archbishop of Milan, just

published, she had been accused of ingratitude to the King of Spain, and

of plots to take the life of Alexander Farnese. In answer to the first

charge, she willingly acknowledged her obligations to the King of Spain

during the reign of her sister. She pronounced it, however, an absolute

falsehood that he had ever saved her life, as if she had ever been

condemned to death. She likewise denied earnestly the charge regarding

the Prince of Parma. She protested herself incapable of such a crime,

besides declaring that he had never given her offence. On the contrary,

he was a man whom she had ever honoured for the rare qualities that she

had noted in him, and for which he had deservedly acquired a high

reputation.

Such, in brief analysis, was the memorable Declaration of Elizabeth in

favour of the Netherlands--a document which was a hardly disguised

proclamation of war against Philip. In no age of the world could an

unequivocal agreement to assist rebellious subjects, with men and money,

against their sovereign, be considered otherwise than as a hostile

demonstration. The King of Spain so regarded the movement, and forthwith

issued a decree, ordering the seizure of all English as well as all

Netherland vessels within his ports, together with the arrest of persons,

and confiscation of property.

Subsequently to the publication of the Queen's memorial, and before the

departure of the Earl of Leicester, Sir Philip Sidney, having received

his appointment, together with the rank of general of cavalry, arrived in

the Isle of Walcheren, as governor of Flushing, at the head of a portion

of the English contingent.

It is impossible not to contemplate with affection so radiant a figure,

shining through the cold mists of that Zeeland winter, and that distant

and disastrous epoch. There is hardly a character in history upon which

the imagination can dwell with more unalloyed delight. Not in romantic

fiction was there ever created a more attractive incarnation of martial

valour, poetic genius, and purity of heart. If the mocking spirit of the

soldier of Lepanto could "smile chivalry away," the name alone of his

English contemporary is potent enough to conjure it back again, so long

as humanity is alive to the nobler impulses.

"I cannot pass him over in silence," says a dusty chronicler, "that

glorious star, that lively pattern of virtue, and the lovely joy of all

the learned sort. It was God's will that he should be born into the

world, even to show unto our age a sample of ancient virtue." The

descendant of an ancient Norman race, and allied to many of the proudest

nobles in England, Sidney himself was but a commoner, a private

individual, a soldier of fortune. He was now in his thirty second year,

and should have been foremost among the states men of Elizabeth, had it

not been, according to Lord Bacon, a maxim of the Cecils, that "able men

should be by design and of purpose suppressed." Whatever of truth there

may have been in the bitter remark, it is certainly strange that a man so

gifted as Sidney--of whom his father-in-law Walsingham had declared, that

"although he had influence in all countries, and a hand upon all affairs,

his Philip did far overshoot him with his own bow"--should have passed so

much of his life in retirement, or in comparatively insignificant

employments. The Queen, as he himself observed, was most apt to interpret

everything to his disadvantage. Among those who knew him well, there

seems never to have been a dissenting voice. His father, Sir Henry

Sidney, lord-deputy of Ireland, and president of Wales, a states man of

accomplishments and experience, called him "lumen familiae suae," and

said of him, with pardonable pride, "that he had the most virtues which

he had ever found in any man; that he was the very formular that all

well-disposed young gentlemen do form their manners and life by."

The learned Hubert Languet, companion of Melancthon, tried friend of

William the Silent, was his fervent admirer and correspondent. The great

Prince of Orange held him in high esteem, and sent word to Queen

Elizabeth, that having himself been an actor in the most important

affairs of Europe, and acquainted with her foremost men, he could "pledge

his credit that her Majesty had one of the ripest and greatest

councillors of state in Sir Philip Sidney that lived in Europe."

The incidents of his brief and brilliant life, up to his arrival upon the

fatal soil of the Netherlands, are too well known to need recalling.

Adorned with the best culture that, in a learned age, could be obtained

in the best seminaries of his native country, where, during childhood and

youth, he had been distinguished for a "lovely and familiar gravity

beyond his years," he rapidly acquired the admiration of his comrades and

the esteem of all his teachers.

Travelling for three years, he made the acquaintance and gained the

personal regard of such opposite characters as Charles IX. of France,

Henry of Navarre, Don John of Austria, and William of Orange, and

perfected his accomplishments by residence and study, alternately, in

courts, camps, and learned universities. He was in Paris during the

memorable days of August, 1572, and narrowly escaped perishing in the St.

Bartholomew Massacre. On his return, he was, for a brief period, the idol

of the English court, which, it was said, "was maimed without his

company." At the age of twenty-one he was appointed special envoy to

Vienna, ostensibly for the purpose of congratulating the Emperor Rudolph

upon his accession, but in reality that he might take the opportunity of

sounding the secret purposes of the Protestant princes of Germany, in

regard to the great contest of the age. In this mission, young as he was,

he acquitted himself, not only to the satisfaction, but to the admiration

of Walsingham, certainly a master himself in that occult science, the

diplomacy of the sixteenth century. "There hath not been," said he, "any

gentleman, I am sure, that hath gone through so honourable a charge with

as great commendations as he."

When the memorable marriage-project of Queen Elizabeth with Anjou seemed

about to take effect, he denounced the scheme in a most spirited and

candid letter, addressed to her Majesty; nor is it recorded that the

Queen was offended with his frankness. Indeed we are informed that

"although he found a sweet stream of sovereign humours in that

well-tempered lady to run against him, yet found he safety in herself

against that selfness which appeared to threaten him in her." Whatever

this might mean, translated out of euphuism into English, it is certain

that his conduct was regarded with small favour by the court-grandees, by

whom "worth, duty, and justice, were looked upon with no other eyes than

Lamia's."

The difficulty of swimming against that sweet stream of sovereign humours

in the well-tempered Elizabeth, was aggravated by his quarrel, at this

period, with the magnificent Oxford. A dispute at a tennis-court, where

many courtiers and foreigners were looking on, proceeded rapidly from one

extremity to another. The Earl commanded Sir Philip to leave the place.

Sir Philip responded, that if he were of a mind that he should go, he

himself was of a mind that he should remain; adding that if he had

entreated, where he had no right to command, he might have done more than

"with the scourge of fury."--"This answer," says Fulke Greville, in a

style worthy of Don Adriano de Armado, "did, like a bellows, blowing up

the sparks of excess already kindled, make my lord scornfully call Sir

Philip by the name of puppy. In which progress of heat, as the tempest

grew more and more vehement within, so did their hearts breathe out their

perturbations in a more loud and shrill accent;" and so on; but the

impending duel was the next day forbidden by express command of her

Majesty. Sidney, not feeling the full force of the royal homily upon the

necessity of great deference from gentlemen to their superiors in rank,

in order to protect all orders from the insults of plebeians, soon

afterwards retired from the court. To his sylvan seclusion the world owes

the pastoral and chivalrous romance of the 'Arcadia' and to the pompous

Earl, in consequence, an emotion of gratitude. Nevertheless, it was in

him to do, rather than to write, and humanity seems defrauded, when

forced to accept the 'Arcadia,' the `Defence of Poesy,' and the

'Astrophel and Stella,' in discharge of its claims upon so great and pure

a soul.

Notwithstanding this disagreeable affair, and despite the memorable

letter against Anjou, Sir Philip suddenly flashes upon us again, as one

of the four challengers in a tournament to honour the Duke's presence in

England. A vision of him in blue gilded armour--with horses caparisoned

in cloth of gold, pearl-embroidered, attended by pages in cloth of

silver, Venetian hose, laced hats, and by gentlemen, yeomen, and

trumpeters, in yellow velvet cassocks, buskins, and feathers--as one of

"the four fostered children of virtuous desire" (to wit, Anjou) storming

"the castle of perfect Beauty" (to wit, Queen Elizabeth, aetatis 47)

rises out of the cloud-dusts of ancient chronicle for a moment, and then

vanishes into air again.

"Having that day his hand, his horse, his lance,

Guided so well that they attained the prize

Both in the judgment of our English eyes,

But of some sent by that sweet enemy, France,"

as he chivalrously sings, he soon afterwards felt inclined for wider

fields of honourable adventure. It was impossible that knight-errant so

true should not feel keenest sympathy with an oppressed people struggling

against such odds, as the Netherlanders were doing in their contest with

Spain. So soon as the treaty with England was arranged, it was his

ambition to take part in the dark and dangerous enterprise, and, being

son-in-law to Walsingham and nephew to Leicester, he had a right to

believe that his talents and character would, on this occasion, be

recognised. But, like his "very friend," Lord Willoughby, he was "not of

the genus Reptilia, and could neither creep nor crouch," and he failed,

as usual, to win his way to the Queen's favour. The governorship of

Flushing was denied him, and, stung to the heart by such neglect, he

determined to seek his fortune beyond the seas.

"Sir Philip hath taken a very hard resolution," wrote Walsingham to

Davison, "to accompany Sir Francis Drake in this voyage, moved thereto

for that he saw her Majesty disposed to commit the charge of Flushing

unto some other; which he reputed would fall out greatly to his disgrace,

to see another preferred before him, both for birth and judgment inferior

unto him. The despair thereof and the disgrace that he doubted he should

receive have carried him into a different course."

The Queen, however, relenting at last, interfered to frustrate his

design. Having thus balked his ambition in the Indian seas, she felt

pledged to offer him the employment which he had originally solicited,

and she accordingly conferred upon him the governorship of Flushing, with

the rank of general of horse, under the Earl of Leicester. In the latter

part of November, he cast anchor, in the midst of a violent storm, at

Rammekins, and thence came to the city of his government. Young, and

looking even younger than his years--"not only of an excellent wit, but

extremely beautiful of face"--with delicately chiselled Anglo-Norman

features, smooth fair cheek, a faint moustache, blue eyes, and a mass of

amber-coloured hair; such was the author of 'Arcadia' and the governor of

Flushing.

And thus an Anglo-Norman representative of ancient race had come back to

the home of his ancestors. Scholar, poet, knight-errant, finished

gentleman, he aptly typified the result of seven centuries of

civilization upon the wild Danish pirate. For among those very quicksands

of storm-beaten Walachria that wondrous Normandy first came into

existence whose wings were to sweep over all the high places of

Christendom. Out of these creeks, lagunes, and almost inaccessible

sandbanks, those bold freebooters sailed forth on their forays against

England, France, and other adjacent countries, and here they brought and

buried the booty of many a wild adventure. Here, at a later day, Rollo

the Dane had that memorable dream of leprosy, the cure of which was the

conversion of North Gaul into Normandy, of Pagans into Christians, and

the subsequent conquest of every throne in Christendom from Ultima Thule

to Byzantium. And now the descendant of those early freebooters had come

back to the spot, at a moment when a wider and even more imperial swoop

was to be made by their modern representatives. For the sea-kings of the

sixteenth century--the Drakes, Hawkinses, Frobishers, Raleighs,

Cavendishes--the De Moors, Heemskerks, Barendts--all sprung of the old

pirate-lineage, whether called Englanders or Hollanders, and instinct

with the same hereditary love of adventure, were about to wrestle with

ancient tyrannies, to explore the most inaccessible regions, and to

establish new commonwealths in worlds undreamed of by their ancestors--to

accomplish, in short, more wondrous feats than had been attempted by the

Knuts, and Rollos, Rurics, Ropers, and Tancreds, of an earlier age.

The place which Sidney was appointed to govern was one of great military

and commercial importance. Flushing was the key to the navigation of the

North Seas, ever since the disastrous storm of a century before, in which

a great trading city on the outermost verge of the island had been

swallowed bodily by the ocean. The Emperor had so thoroughly recognized

its value, as to make special mention of the necessity for its

preservation, in his private instructions to Philip, and now the Queen of

England had confided it to one who was competent to appreciate and to

defend the prize. "How great a jewel this place (Flushing) is to the

crown of England," wrote Sidney to his Uncle Leicester, "and to the

Queen's safety, I need not now write it to your lordship, who knows it so

well. Yet I must needs say, the better I know it, the more I find the

preciousness of it."

He did not enter into his government, however, with much pomp and

circumstance, but came afoot into Flushing in the midst of winter and

foul weather. "Driven to land at Rammekins," said he, "because the wind

began to rise in such sort as from thence our mariners durst not enter

the town, I came with as dirty a walk as ever poor governor entered his

charge withal." But he was cordially welcomed, nor did he arrive by any

means too soon.

"I find the people very glad of our coming," he said, "and promise myself

as much surety in keeping this town, as popular good-will, gotten by

light hopes, and by as slight conceits, may breed; for indeed the

garrison is far too weak to command by authority, which is pity . . . . I

think, truly, that if my coming had been longer delayed, some alteration

would have followed; for the truth is, this people is weary of war, and

if they do not see such a course taken as may be likely to defend them,

they will in a sudden give over the cause. . . . All will be lost if

government be not presently used."

He expressed much anxiety for the arrival of his uncle, with which

sentiments he assured the Earl that the Netherlanders fully sympathized.

"Your Lordship's coming," he said, "is as much longed for as Messias is

of the Jews. It is indeed most necessary that your Lordship make great

speed to reform both the Dutch and English abuses."

ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:

Able men should be by design and of purpose suppressed

He did his work, but he had not his reward

Matter that men may rather pray for than hope for

Not of the genus Reptilia, and could neither creep nor crouch

Others that do nothing, do all, and have all the thanks

Peace-at-any-price party

The busy devil of petty economy

Thought that all was too little for him

Weary of place without power

HISTORY OF THE UNITED NETHERLANDS

From the Death of William the Silent to the Twelve Year's Truce--1609

By John Lothrop Motley

History United Netherlands, Volume 44, 1585-1586

CHAPTER VII., Part 1.

The Earl of Leicester--His Triumphal Entrance into Holland--English

Spies about him--Importance of Holland to England--Spanish Schemes

for invading England--Letter of the Grand Commander--Perilous

Position of England--True Nature of the Contest--wealth and Strength

of the Provinces--Power of the Dutch and English People--Affection

of the Hollanders for the Queen--Secret Purposes of Leicester--

Wretched condition of English Troops--The Nassaus and Hohenlo--The

Earl's Opinion of them--Clerk and Killigrew--Interview with the

States Government General offered to the Earl--Discussions on the

Subject--The Earl accepts the Office--His Ambition and Mistakes--His

Installation at the Hague--Intimations of the Queen's Displeasure--

Deprecatory Letters of Leicester--Davison's Mission to England--

Queen's Anger and Jealousy--Her angry Letters to the Earl and the

States--Arrival of Davison--Stormy Interview with the Queen--The

second one is calmer--Queen's Wrath somewhat mitigated--Mission of

Heneago to the States--Shirley sent to England by the Earl--His

Interview with Elizabeth

At last the Earl of Leicester came. Embarking at Harwich, with a fleet of

fifty ships, and attended "by the flower and chief gallants of

England"--the Lords Sheffield, Willoughby, North, Burroughs, Sir Gervase

Clifton, Sir William Russell, Sir Robert Sidney, and others among the

number--the new lieutenant-general of the English forces in the

Netherlands arrived on the 19th December, 1585, at Flushing.

His nephew, Sir Philip Sidney, and Count Maurice of Nassau, with a body

of troops and a great procession of civil functionaries; were in

readiness to receive him, and to escort him to the lodgings prepared for

him.

Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, was then fifty-four years of age. There

are few personages in English history whose adventures, real or

fictitious, have been made more familiar to the world than his have been,

or whose individuality has been presented in more picturesque fashion, by

chronicle, tragedy, or romance. Born in the same day of the month and

hour of the day with the Queen, but two years before her birth, the

supposed synastry of their destinies might partly account, in that age of

astrological superstition, for the influence which he perpetually

exerted. They had, moreover, been fellow-prisoners together, in the

commencement of the reign of Mary, and it is possible that he may have

been the medium through which the indulgent expressions of Philip II.

were conveyed to the Princess Elizabeth.