wn that the Earl was a master of Billingsgate.

"Hollock says that I did procure Edward Norris to send him his cartel,"
observed Leicester on one occasion, "wherein I protest before the Lord, I
was as ignorant as any man in England. His brother John can tell whether
I did not send for him to have committed him for it; but that, in very
truth, upon the perusing of it" (after it had been sent), "it was very
reasonably written, and I did consider also the great wrong offered him
by the Count, and so forbore it. I was so careful for the Count's safety
after the brawl between him and Norris, that I charged Sir John, if any
harm came to the Count's person by any of his or under him, that he
should answer it. Therefore, I take the story to be bred in the bosom of
some much like a thief or villain, whatsoever he were."

And all this was doubtless true so far as regarded the Earl's original
exertions to prevent the consequences of the quarrel, but did not touch
the point of the second correspondence preceded by the conversation in
the dining-room, eight days before the voyage to England. The affair, in
itself of slight importance, would not merit so much comment at this late
day had it not been for its endless consequences. The ferocity with which
the Earl came to regard every prominent German, Hollander, and
Englishman, engaged in the service of the States, sprang very much from
the complications of this vulgar brawl. Norris, Hohenlo, Wilkes,
Buckhurst, were all denounced to the Queen as calumniators, traitors, and
villains; and it may easily be understood how grave and extensive must
have been the effects of such vituperation upon the mind of Elizabeth,
who, until the last day of his life, doubtless entertained for the Earl
the deepest affection of which her nature was susceptible. Hohenlo, with
Count Maurice, were the acknowledged chiefs of the anti-English party,
and the possibility of cordial cooperation between the countries may be
judged of by the entanglement which had thus occurred.

Leicester had always hated Sir John Norris, but he knew that the mother
had still much favour with the Queen, and he was therefore the more
vehement in his denunciations of the son the more difficulty he found in
entirely destroying his character, and the keener jealousy he felt that
any other tongue but his should influence her Majesty. "The story of John
Norris about the cartel is, by the Lord God, most false," he exclaimed;
"I do beseec