hink it impossible," he added--and it is quite probable that even
Walsingham would have been astonished, had Roland written all. The game
playing by York and Stanley was not one to which English gentlemen were
much addicted.

"I trust the bearer, Edward Stanley; a discreet, brave gentleman," he
said, "with details." And the remark proves that the gallant youth who
had captured this very Fort Zutphen in, so brilliant a manner was not
privy to the designs of his brother and of York; for the object of the
"discourse" was to deceive the English government.

"I humbly beseech that you will send for me home," concluded Roland, "for
true as I humbled my mind to please her Majesty, your honour, and the
dead, now am I content to humble myself lower to please myself, for now,
since his, Excellency's departure, there is no form of proceeding neither
honourably nor honestly."

Three other weeks passed over, weeks of anxiety and dread throughout the
republic. Suspicion grew darker than ever, not only as to York and
Stanley, but as to all the English commanders, as to the whole English
nation. An Anjou plot, a general massacre, was expected by many, yet
there were no definite grounds for such dark anticipations. In vain had
painstaking, truth-telling Wilkes summoned Stanley to his duty, and
called on Leicester, time after time, to interfere. In vain did Sir John
Norris, Sir John Conway, the members of the state-council, and all others
who should have had authority, do their utmost to avert a catastrophe.
Their hands were all tied by the fatal letter of the 24th November. Most
anxiously did all implore the Earl of Leicester to return. Never was a
more dangerous moment than this for a country to be left to its fate.
Scarcely ever in history was there a more striking exemplification of the
need of a man--of an individual--who should embody the powers and wishes,
and concentrate in one brain and arm, the whole energy, of a
commonwealth. But there was no such man, for the republic had lost its
chief when Orange died. There was much wisdom and patriotism now.
Olden-Barneveld was competent, and so was Buys, to direct the councils of
the republic, and there were few better soldiers than Norris and Hohenlo
to lead her armies against Spain. But the supreme authority had been
confided to Leicester. He had not perhaps proved himself extraordinarily
qualified for his post, but he was the governor-in-chief, and his
departure, without resigning h