spurned the oppression of the Spaniards and the French--that it was now
time to, rebel against the English. Barneveld and Buys loudly declared
that the Provinces were able to protect themselves without foreign
assistance, and that it was very injurious to impress a contrary opinion
upon the public mind.

The whole college of the States-General came before the state-council,
and demanded the name of the man to whom the Earl's restrictive letter
had been delivered--that document by which the governor had dared
surreptitiously to annul the authority which publicly he had delegated to
that body, and thus to deprive it of the power of preventing anticipated
crimes. After much colloquy the name of Brackel was given, and, had not
the culprit fortunately been absent, his life might have, been in danger,
for rarely had grave statesmen been so thoroughly infuriated.

No language can exaggerate the consequences of this wretched treason.
Unfortunately, too; the abject condition to which the English troops had
been reduced by the niggardliness of their sovereign was an additional
cause of danger. Leicester was gone, and since her favourite was no
longer in the Netherlands, the Queen seemed to forget that there was a
single Englishman upon that fatal soil. In five months not one penny had
been sent to her troops. While the Earl had been there one hundred and
forty thousand pounds had been sent in seven or eight months. After his
departure not five thousand pounds were sent in one half year.

The English soldiers, who had fought so well in every Flemish
battle-field of freedom, had become--such as were left of them--mere
famishing half naked vagabonds and marauders. Brave soldiers had been
changed by their sovereign into brigands, and now the universal odium
which suddenly attached itself to the English name converted them into
outcasts. Forlorn and crippled creatures swarmed about the Provinces, but
were forbidden to come through the towns, and so wandered about, robbing
hen-roosts and pillaging the peasantry. Many deserted to the enemy. Many
begged their way to England, and even to the very gates of the palace,
and exhibited their wounds and their misery before the eyes of that good
Queen Bess who claimed to be the mother of her subjects,--and begged for
bread in vain.

The English cavalry, dwindled now to a body of five hundred, starving and
mutinous, made a foray into Holland, rather as highwaymen than soldiers.
Count Maurice