ate friend of
Sir John, "to the gladding of all such as wished well to, the country;"
but he nourished a deadly hatred to the Earl. He ran up and down like a
madman whenever his return was mentioned. "If the Queen be willing to
take the sovereignty," he cried out at his own dinner-table to a large
company, "and is ready to proceed roundly in this action, I will serve
her to the last drop of my blood; but if she embrace it in no other sort
than hitherto she hath done, and if Leicester is to return, then am I as
good a man as Leicester, and will never be commanded by him. I mean to
continue on my frontier, where all who love me can come and find me."

He declared to several persons that he had detected a plot on the part of
Leicester to have him assassinated; and the assertion seemed so
important, that Villiers came to Councillor Clerk to confer with him on
the subject. The worthy Bartholomew, who had again, most reluctantly,
left his quiet chambers in the Temple to come again among the guns and
drums, which his soul abhorred, was appalled by such a charge. It was
best to keep it a secret, he said, at least till the matter could be
thoroughly investigated. Villiers was of the same opinion, and
accordingly the councillor, in the excess of his caution, confided the
secret only--to whom? To Mr. Atye, Leicester's private secretary. Atye,
of course, instantly told his master--his master in a frenzy of rage,
told the Queen, and her Majesty, in a paroxysm of royal indignation at
this new insult to her favourite, sent furious letters to her envoys, to
the States-General, to everybody in the Netherlands--so that the
assertion of Hohenlo became the subject of endless recrimination.
Leicester became very violent, and denounced the statement as an impudent
falsehood, devised wilfully in order to cast odium upon him and to
prevent his return. Unquestionably there was nothing in the story but
table-talk; but the Count would have been still more ferocious towards
Leicester than he was, had he known what was actually happening at that
very moment.

While Buckhurst was at Utrecht, listening to the "solemn-speeches" of the
militia-captains and exchanging friendly expressions at stately banquets
with Moeurs, he suddenly received a letter in cipher from her Majesty.
Not having the key, he sent to Wilkes at the Hague. Wilkes was very ill;
but the despatch was marked pressing and immediate, so he got out of bed
and made the journey to Utrecht