tary operations were crippled for want of funds, but more fatal
than everything else were the secret negotiations for peace. Subordinate
individuals, like Grafigni and De Loo, went up and down, bringing
presents out of England for Alexander Farnese, and bragging that Parma
and themselves could have peace whenever they liked to make it, and
affirming that Leicester's opinions were of no account whatever.
Elizabeth's coldness to the Earl and to the Netherlands was affirmed to
be the Prince of Parma's sheet-anchor; while meantime a house was
ostentatiously prepared in Brussels by their direction for the reception
of an English ambassador, who was every moment expected to arrive. Under
such circumstances it was in, vain for the governor-general to protest
that the accounts of secret negotiations were false, and quite natural
that the States should lose their confidence in the Queen. An unfriendly
and suspicious attitude towards her representative was a necessary
result, and the demonstrations against the common enemy became still more
languid. But for these underhand dealings, Grave, Venlo, and Neusz, might
have been saved, and the current 'of the Meuse and Rhine have remained in
the hands of the patriots.

The Earl was industrious, generous, and desirous of playing well his
part. His personal courage was undoubted, and, in the opinion of his
admirers--themselves, some of them, men of large military experience--his
ability as a commander was of a high order. The valour displayed by the
English nobles and gentlemen who accompanied him was magnificent, worthy
the descendants of the victors at Crecy, Poitiers, and Agincourt; and the
good behaviour of their followers--with a few rare exceptions--had been
equally signal. But now the army was dwindling to a ghastly array of
scarecrows, and the recruits, as they came from England, were appalled by
the spectacle presented by their predecessors. "Our old ragged rogues
here have so discouraged our new men," said Leicester; "as I protest to
you they look like dead men." Out of eleven hundred freshly-arrived
Englishmen, five hundred ran away in two days. Some were caught and
hanged, and all seemed to prefer hanging to remaining in the service,
while the Earl declared that he would be hanged as well rather than again
undertake such a charge without being assured payment for his troops
beforehand!

The valour of Sidney and Essex, Willoughby and Pelham, Roger Williams and
Martin Schenk,