positions, considered by her Majesty as indispensable preliminaries to
the governor's visit.

The council adjourned till after dinner, and Buckhurst held conference
meantime with various counsellors and deputies. On the reassembling of
the board, it was urged by Barneveld, in the name of the States, that the
election of Prince Maurice should still hold good. "Although by these
letters," said he, "it would seem that her Majesty had resolved upon the
speedy return of his Excellency, yet, inasmuch as the counsels and
resolutions of princes are often subject to change upon new occasion, it
does not seem fit that our late purpose concerning Prince Maurice should
receive any interruption."

Accordingly, after brief debate, both resolutions, voted in the morning,
were confirmed in the afternoon.

"So now," said Wilkes, "Maurice is general of all the forces, 'et quid
sequetur nescimus.'"

But whatever else was to follow, it was very certain that Wilkes would
not stay. His great enemy had sworn his destruction, and would now take
his choice, whether to do him to death himself, or to throw him into the
clutch of the ferocious Hohenlo. "As for my own particular," said the
counsellor, "the word is go, whosoever cometh or cometh not," and he
announced to Walsingham his intention of departing without permission,
should he not immediately receive it from England. "I shall stay to be
dandled with no love-days nor leave-takings," he observed.

But Leicester had delayed his coming too long. The country felt that
it-had been trifled with by his: absence--at so critical a period--of
seven months. It was known too that the Queen was secretly treating with
the enemy, and that Buckhurst had been privately sounding leading
personages upon that subject, by her orders. This had caused a deep,
suppressed indignation. Over and over again had the English government
been warned as to the danger of delay. "Your length in resolving;" Wilkes
had said, "whatsoever your secret purposes may be--will put us to new
plunges before long." The mission of Buckhurst was believed to be "but a
stale, having some other intent than was expressed." And at last, the new
plunge had been fairly taken. It seemed now impossible for Leicester to
regain the absolute authority, which he coveted; and which he had for a
brief season possessed. The States-General, under able leaders, had
become used to a government which had been forced upon them, and which
they had wielde