STORY OF THE UNITED NETHERLANDS

From the Death of William the Silent to the Twelve Year's Truce--1609

By John Lothrop Motley

History United Netherlands, Volume 52, 1587

CHAPTER XIV.

Leicester in England--Trial of the Queen of Scots--Fearful
Perplexity at the English Court--Infatuation and Obstinacy of the
Queen--Netherland Envoys in England--Queen's bitter Invective
against them--Amazement of the Envoys--They consult with her chief
Councillors--Remarks of Burghley and Davison--Fourth of February
Letter from the States--Its severe Language towards Leicester--
Painful Position of the Envoys at Court--Queen's Parsimony towards
Leicester.

The scene shifts, for a brief interval, to England. Leicester had reached
the court late in November. Those "blessed beams," under whose shade he
was wont to find so much "refreshment and nutrition," had again fallen
with full radiance upon him. "Never since I was born," said he, "did I
receive a more gracious welcome."--[Leicester to 'Wilkes, 4 Dec. 1587.
(S. P. Office MS)]--Alas, there was not so much benignity for the
starving English soldiers, nor for the Provinces, which were fast growing
desperate; but although their cause was so intimately connected with the
"great cause," which then occupied Elizabeth, almost to the exclusion of
other matter, it was, perhaps, not wonderful, although unfortunate, that
for a time the Netherlands should be neglected.

The "daughter of debate" had at last brought herself, it was supposed,
within the letter of the law, and now began those odious scenes of
hypocrisy on the part of Elizabeth, that frightful comedy--more
melancholy even than the solemn tragedy which it preceded and
followed--which must ever remain the darkest passage in the history of
the Queen.

It is unnecessary, in these pages, to make more than a passing allusion
to the condemnation and death of the Queen of Scots. Who doubts her
participation in the Babington conspiracy? Who doubts that she was the
centre of one endless conspiracy by Spain and Rome against the throne and
life of Elizabeth? Who doubts that her long imprisonment in England was a
violation of all law, all justice, all humanity? Who doubts that the
fineing, whipping, torturing, hanging, embowelling of men, women, and
children, guilty of no other crime than adhesion to the Catholic faith,
had assisted the Pope and Philip, and their band of English, Scotch, and
Irish conspirator