ossible that assassination, especially poisoning, may have been a more
common-place affair in those days than our own. At any rate, it is
certain that accusations of such crimes were of ordinary occurrence. Men
were apt to die suddenly if they had mortal enemies, and people would
gossip. At the very same moment, Leicester was deliberately accused not
only of murderous intentions towards Hohenlo, but towards Thomas Wilkes
and Count Lewis William of Nassau likewise. A trumpeter, arrested in
Friesland, had just confessed that he had been employed by the Spanish
governor of that Province, Colonel Verdugo, to murder Count Lewis, and
that four other persons had been entrusted with the same commission. The
Count wrote to Verdugo, and received in reply an indignant denial of the
charge. "Had I heard of such a project," said the Spaniard, "I would, on
the contrary, have given you warning. And I give you one now." He then
stated, as a fact known to him on unquestionable authority, that the Earl
of Leicester had assassins at that moment in his employ to take the life
of Count Lewis, adding that as for the trumpeter, who had just been
hanged for the crime suborned by the writer, he was a most notorious
lunatic. In reply, Lewis, while he ridiculed this plea of insanity set up
for a culprit who had confessed his crime succinctly and voluntarily,
expressed great contempt for the counter-charge against Leicester. "His
Excellency," said the sturdy little Count, "is a virtuous gentleman, the
most pious and God-fearing I have ever known. I am very sure that he
could never treat his enemies in the manner stated, much less his
friends. As for yourself, may God give me grace, in requital of your
knavish trick, to make such a war upon you as becomes an upright soldier
and a man of honour."

Thus there was at least one man--and a most important, one--in the
opposition--party who thoroughly believed in the honour of the
governor-general.

The Queen then proceeded to lecture Lord Buckhurst very severely for
having tolerated an instant the States' proposition to her for a loan of
L50,000. "The enemy," she observed, "is quite unable to attempt the siege
of any town."

Buckhurst was, however, instructed, in case the States' million should
prove insufficient to enable the army to make head against the enemy, and
in the event of "any alteration of the good-will of the people towards
her, caused by her not yielding, in this their necessity, some con