themselves. These honest barbarians had
broken no oath, violated no trust, had never pretended sympathy with
freedom; or affection for their Queen. They had fought fiercely under the
chief who led them into battle--they had robbed and plundered voraciously
as opportunity served, and had been occasionally hanged for their
exploits; but Deventer and Fort Zutphen had not been confided to their
keeping; and it was a pleasant thought to them, that approaching invasion
of Ireland. "I will ruin the whole country from Holland to Friesland,"
said Stanley to Captain Newton, "and then I will play such a game in
Ireland as the Queen has never seen the like all the days of her life."

Newton had already been solicited by Roland York to take service under
Parma, and had indignantly declined. Sir Edmund Carey and his men, four
hundred in all, refused, to a man, to take part in the monstrous treason,
and were allowed to leave the city. This was the case with all the
English officers. Stanley and York were the only gentlemen who on this
occasion sullied the honour of England.

Captain Henchman, who had been taken prisoner in a skirmish a few days
before the surrender of Deventer, was now brought to that city, and
earnestly entreated by Tassis and by Stanley to seize this opportunity of
entering the service of Spain.

"You shall have great advancement and preferment," said Tassis. "His
Catholic Majesty has got ready very many ships for Ireland, and Sir
William Stanley is to be general of the expedition."

"And you shall choose your own preferment," said Stanley, "for I know you
to be a brave man."

"I would rather," replied Henchman, "serve my prince in loyalty as a
beggar, than to be known and reported a rich traitor, with breach of
conscience."

"Continue so," replied Stanley, unabashed; "for this is the very
principle of my own enlargement: for, before, I served the devil, and now
I am serving God."

The offers and the arguments of the Spaniard and the renegade were
powerless with the blunt captain, and notwithstanding "divers other
traitorous alledgements by Sir William for his most vile facts," as
Henchman expressed it, that officer remained in poverty and captivity
until such time as he could be exchanged.

Stanley subsequently attempted in various ways to defend his character.
He had a commission from Leicester, he said, to serve whom he chose--as
if the governor-general had contemplated his serving Philip II. with that