ck
again. That forlorn little prelate was now poorer and more wretched than
ever. He was becoming paralytic, though young, and his heart was broken
through want. Leicester, always generous as the sun, gave him money, four
thousand florins at a time, and was most earnest that the Queen should
put him on her pension list. "His wisdom, his behaviour, his languages,
his person," said the Earl, "all would like her well. He is in great
melancholy for his town of Neusz, and for his poverty, having a very
noble mind. If, he be lost, her Majesty had better lose a hundred
thousand pounds."

The melancholy Truchsess now became a spy and a go-between. He insinuated
himself into the confidence of Paul Buys, wormed his secrets from him,
and then communicated them to Hohenlo and to Leicester; "but he did it
very wisely," said the Earl, "so that he was not mistrusted." The
governor always affected, in order to screen the elector from suspicion,
to obtain his information from persons in Utrecht; and he had indeed many
spies in that city; who diligently reported Paul's table-talk.
Nevertheless, that "noble gentleman, the elector," said Leicester, "hath
dealt most deeply with him, to seek out the bottom." As the ex-Advocate
of Holland was very communicative in his cups, and very bitter against
the governor-general, there was soon such a fund of information collected
on the subject by various eaves-droppers, that Leicester was in hopes of
very soon hanging Mr. Paul Buys, as we have already seen.

The burthen of the charges against the culprit was his statement that the
Provinces would be gone if her Majesty did not declare herself,
vigorously and generously, in their favour; but, as this was the
perpetual cry of Leicester himself, there seemed hardly hanging matter in
that. That noble gentleman, the elector, however, had nearly saved the
hangman his trouble, having so dealt with Hohenlo as to "bring him into
as good a mind as ever he was;" and the first fruits of this good mind
were, that the honest Count--a man of prompt dealings--walked straight to
Paul's house in order to kill him on the spot. Something fortunately
prevented the execution of this plan; but for a time at least the
energetic Count continued to be "governed greatly" by the ex-archbishop,
and "did impart wholly unto him his most secret heart."

Thus the "deep wise Truxy," as Leicester called him, continued to earn
golden opinions, and followed up his conversion of Hohenlo