ef in
Leicester's absence. Moreover, a cornet in the service of the Earl's
nephew, Sir Robert Sidney, had been seen at Zutphen in conference with
Tassis; and the horrible suspicion went abroad that even the illustrious
name of Sidney was to be polluted also. This fear was fortunately false,
although the cornet was unquestionably a traitor, with whom the enemy had
been tampering; but the mere thought that Sir Robert Sidney could betray
the trust reposed in him was almost enough to make the still unburied
corpse of his brother arise from the dead.

Parma was right when he said that all confidence of the Netherlanders in
the Englishmen would now be gone, and that the Provinces would begin to
doubt their best friends. No fresh treasons followed, but they were
expected every day. An organized plot to betray the country was believed
in, and a howl of execration swept through the land. The noble deeds of
Sidney and Willoughby, and Norris and Pelham, and Roger Williams, the
honest and valuable services of Wilkes, the generosity and courage of
Leicester, were for a season forgotten. The English were denounced in
every city and village of the Netherlands as traitors and miscreants.
Respectable English merchants went from hostelry to hostelry, and from
town to town, and were refused a lodging for love or money. The nation
was put under ban. A most melancholy change from the beginning of the
year, when the very men who were now loudest in denunciation and fiercest
in hate, had been the warmest friends of Elizabeth, of England, and of
Leicester.

At Hohenlo's table the opinion was loudly expressed, even in the presence
of Sir Roger Williams, that it was highly improbable, if a man like
Stanley, of such high rank in the kingdom of England, of such great
connections and large means, could commit such a treason, that he could
do so without the knowledge and consent of her Majesty.

Barneveld, in council of state, declared that Leicester, by his
restrictive letter of 24th November, had intended to carry the authority
over the republic into England, in order to dispose of everything at his
pleasure, in conjunction with the English cabinet-council, and that the
country had never been so cheated by the French as it had now been by the
English, and that their government had become insupportable.

Councillor Carl Roorda maintained at the table of Elector Truchsess that
the country had fallen 'de tyrannide in tyrrannidem;' and--if they had