thought that by humouring the petulant young man it might be possible to manage him.

"Maurice is young," he said, "hot-headed; coveting honour. If we do but look at him through our fingers, without much words, but with providence enough, baiting his hook a little to his appetite, there is no doubt but he might be caught and kept in a fish-pool; while in his imagination he may judge it a sea. If not, 'tis likely he will make us fish in troubled waters."

Maurice was hardly the fish for a mill-pond even at that epoch, and it might one day be seen whether or not he could float in the great ocean of events. Meanwhile, he swam his course without superfluous gambols or spoutings.

The commander of her Majesty's forces was not satisfied with the States, nor their generals, nor their politicians. "Affairs are going 'a malo in pejus,'" he said. "They embrace their liberty as apes their young. To this end are Counts Hollock and Maurice set upon the stage to entertain the popular sort. Her Majesty and my Lord of Leicester are not forgotten. The Counts are in Holland, especially Hollock, for the other is but the cipher. And yet I can assure you Maurice hath wit and spirit too much for his time."

As the troubles of the interregnum increased Willoughby was more dissatisfied than ever with the miserable condition of the Provinces, but chose to ascribe it to the machinations of the States' party, rather than to the ambiguous conduct of Leicester. "These evils," he said, "are especially, derived from the childish ambition of the young Count Maurice, from the covetous and furious counsels of the proud Hollanders, now chief of the States-General, and, if with pardon it may be said, from our slackness and coldness to entertain our friends. The provident and wiser sort—weighing what a slender ground the appetite of a young man is, unfurnished with the sinews of war to manage so great a cause—for a good space after my Lord of Leicester's departure, gave him far looking on, to see him play has part on the stage."

Willoughby's spleen caused him to mix his metaphors more recklessly than strict taste would warrant, but his violent expressions painted the relative situation of parties more vividly than could be done by a calm disquisition. Maurice thus playing his part upon the stage—as the general proceeded to observe—"was a skittish horse, becoming by little and little assured of what he had feared, and perceiving the harmlessness thereof; while his companions, finding no safety of neutrality in so great practices, and no overturning nor barricado to stop his rash wilded chariot, followed without fear; and when some of the first had passed the bog; the rest, as the fashion is, never started after. The variable democracy; embracing novelty, began to applaud their prosperity; the base and lewdest sorts of men, to whom there is nothing more agreeable than change of estates, is a better monture to degrees than their merit, took present hold thereof. Hereby Paul Buys, Barneveld, and divers others, who were before mantled with a tolerable affection, though seasoned with a poisoned intention, caught the occasion, and made themselves the Beelzebubs of all these mischiefs, and, for want of better angels, spared not to let fly our golden-winged ones in the name of guilders, to prepare the hearts and hands that hold money more dearer than honesty, of which sort, the country troubles and the Spanish practices having suckled up many, they found enough to serve their purpose. As the breach is safely saltable where no defence is made, so they, finding no head, but those scattered arms that were disavowed, drew the sword with Peter, and gave pardon with the Pope, as you shall plainly perceive by the proceedings at Horn. Thus their force; fair words, or corruption, prevailing everywhere, it grew to this conclusion—that the worst were encouraged with their good success, and the best sort assured of no fortune or favour."

Out of all this hubbub of stage-actors, skittish horses, rash wilded chariots, bogs, Beelzebubs, and golden-winged angels, one truth was distinctly audible; that Beelzebub, in the shape of Barneveld, had been getting the upper hand in the Netherlands, and that the Lecestrians were at a disadvantage. In truth those partisans were becoming extremely impatient. Finding themselves deserted by their great protector, they naturally turned their eyes towards Spain, and were now threatening to sell themselves to Philip. The Earl, at his departure, had given them privately much encouragement. But month after month had passed by while they were waiting in vain for comfort. At last the "best"—that is to say, the unhappy Leicestrians—came to Willoughby, asking his advice in their "declining and desperate cause."

"Well nigh a month longer," said that general, "I nourished them with compliments, and assured them that my Lord of Leicester would take care of them." The diet was not fattening. So they began to grumble more loudly than ever, and complained with great bitterness of the miserable condition in which they had been left by the Earl, and expressed their fears lest the Queen likewise meant to abandon them. They protested that their poverty, their powerful foes, and their slow friends, would. compel them either to make their peace with the States' party, or "compound with the enemy."

It would have seemed that real patriots, under such circumstances, would hardly hesitate in their choice, and would sooner accept the dominion of "Beelzebub," or even Paul Buys, than that of Philip II. But the Leicestrians of Utrecht and Friesland—patriots as they were—hated Holland worse than they hated the Inquisition. Willoughby encouraged them in that hatred. He assured him of her Majesty's affection for them, complained of the factious proceedings of the States, and alluded to the unfavourable state of the weather, as a reason why—near four months long—they had not received the comfort out of England which they had a right to expect. He assured them that neither the Queen nor Leicester would conclude this honourable action, wherein much had been hazarded, "so rawly and tragically" as they seemed to fear, and warned them, that "if they did join with Holland, it would neither ease nor help them, but draw them into a more dishonourable loss of their liberties; and that, after having wound them in, the Hollanders would make their own peace with the enemy."

It seemed somewhat unfair-while the Queen's government was straining every nerve to obtain a peace from Philip, and while the Hollanders were obstinately deaf to any propositions for treating—that Willoughby should accuse them of secret intentions to negotiate. But it must be confessed that faction has rarely worn a more mischievous aspect than was presented by the politics of Holland and England in the winter and spring of 1588.

Young Maurice was placed in a very painful position. He liked not to be "strangled in the great Queen's embrace;" but he felt most keenly the necessity of her friendship, and the importance to both countries of a close alliance. It was impossible for him, however, to tolerate the rebellion of Sonoy, although Sonoy was encouraged by Elizabeth, or to fly in the face of Barneveld, although Barneveld was detested by Leicester. So with much firmness and courtesy, notwithstanding the extravagant pictures painted by Willoughby, he suppressed mutiny in Holland, while avowing the most chivalrous attachment to the sovereign of England.

Her Majesty expressed her surprise and her discontent, that, notwithstanding his expressions of devotion to herself, he should thus deal with Sonoy, whose only crime was an equal devotion. "If you do not behave with more moderation in future," she said, "you may believe that we are not a princess of so little courage as not to know how to lend a helping hand to those who are unjustly oppressed. We should be