may have said in
private conversation, and whatever deductions he may have made among his
intimate friends, from the admitted facts in the case, could hardly be
made matters of record. It does not appear that he, or the statesmen who
acted with him, considered the Earl capable of a deliberate design to
sell the cities, thus to be acquired, to Spain, as the price of peace for
England. Certainly Elizabeth would have scorned such a crime, and was
justly indignant at rumours prevalent to that effect; but the wrath of
the Queen and of her favourite were, perhaps, somewhat simulated, in
order to cover their real mortification at the discovery of designs on
the part of the Earl which could not be denied. Not only had they been at
last compelled to confess these negotiations, which for several months
had been concealed and stubbornly denied, but the still graver plots of
the Earl to regain his much-coveted authority had been, in a startling
manner, revealed. The leaders of the States-General had a right to
suspect the English Earl of a design to reenact the part of the Duke of
Anjou, and were justified in taking stringent measures to prevent a
calamity, which, as they believed, was impending over their little
commonwealth. The high-handed dealings of Leicester in the city of
Utrecht have been already described. The most respectable and influential
burghers of the place had been imprisoned and banished, the municipal
government wrested from the hands to which it legitimately belonged, and
confided to adventurers, who wore the cloak of Calvinism to conceal their
designs, and a successful effort had been made, in the name of democracy,
to eradicate from one ancient province the liberty on which it prided
itself.

In the course of the autumn, an attempt was made to play the same game at
Amsterdam. A plot was discovered, before it was fairly matured, to seize
the magistrates of that important city, to gain possession of the
arsenals, and to place the government in the hands of well-known
Leicestrians. A list of fourteen influential citizens, drawn up in the
writing of Burgrave, the Earl's confidential secretary, was found, all of
whom, it was asserted, had been doomed to the scaffold.

The plot to secure Amsterdam had failed, but, in North Holland, Medenblik
was held firmly for Leicester, by Diedrich Sonoy, in the very teeth of
the States. The important city of Enkhuyzen, too, was very near being
secured for the Earl, but a still m