587. We have lifted the curtain
of the secret council-chamber at Greenwich. We have seen all Elizabeth's
advisers anxious to arouse her from her fatal credulity, from her almost
as fatal parsimony. We have seen Leicester anxious to return, despite all
fancied indignities, Walsingham eager to expedite the enterprise, and the
Queen remaining obdurate, while month after month of precious time was
melting away.

In the Netherlands, meantime, discord and confusion had been increasing
every day; and the first great cause of such a dangerous condition of
affairs was the absence of the governor. To this all parties agreed. The
Leicestrians, the anti-Leicestriana, the Holland party, the Utrecht
party, the English counsellors, the English generals, in private letter,
in solemn act, all warned the Queen against the lamentable effects
resulting from Leicester's inopportune departure and prolonged absence.

On the first outbreak of indignation after the Deventer Affair, Prince
Maurice was placed at the head of the general government, with the
violent Hohenlo as his lieutenant. The greatest exertions were made by
these two nobles and by Barneveld, who guided the whole policy of the
party, to secure as many cities as possible to their cause. Magistrates
and commandants of garrisons in many towns willingly gave in their
adhesion to the new government; others refused; especially Diedrich
Sonoy, an officer of distinction, who was governor of Enkhuyzen, and
influential throughout North Holland, and who remained a stanch partisan
of Leicester. Utrecht, the stronghold of the Leicestrians, was wavering
and much torn by faction; Hohenlo and Moeurs had "banquetted and feasted"
to such good purpose that they had gained over half the captains of the
burgher-guard, and, aided by the branch of nobles, were making a good
fight against the Leicester magistracy and the clerical force, enriched
by the plunder of the old Catholic livings, who denounced as Papistical
and Hispaniolized all who favoured the party of Maurice and Barneveld.

By the end of March the envoys returned from London, and in their company
came Lord Buckhurst, as special ambassador from the Queen.

Thomas Sackville, Lord Buckhurst--afterwards Earl of Dorset and
lord-treasurer--was then fifty-one years of age. A man of large
culture-poet, dramatist, diplomatist-bred to the bar; afterwards elevated
to the peerage; endowed with high character and strong intellect; ready
with tongue