that the accounts of secret negotiations were false, and quite natural
that the States should lose their confidence in the Queen. An unfriendly
and suspicious attitude towards her representative was a necessary
result, and the demonstrations against the common enemy became still more
languid. But for these underhand dealings, Grave, Venlo, and Neusz,
might have been saved, and the current 'of the Meuse and Rhine have
remained in the hands of the patriots.

The Earl was industrious, generous, and desirous of playing well his
part. His personal courage was undoubted, and, in the opinion of his
admirers--themselves, some of them, men of large military experience--his
ability as a commander was of a high order. The valour displayed by the
English nobles and gentlemen who accompanied him was magnificent, worthy
the descendants of the victors at Crecy, Poitiers, and Agincourt; and the
good behaviour of their followers--with a few rare exceptions--had been
equally signal. But now the army was dwindling to a ghastly array of
scarecrows, and the recruits, as they came from England, were appalled by
the spectacle presented by their predecessors. "Our old ragged rogues
here have so discouraged our new men," said Leicester; "as I protest to
you they look like dead men." Out of eleven hundred freshly-arrived
Englishmen, five hundred ran away in two days. Some were caught and
hanged, and all seemed to prefer hanging to remaining in the service,
while the Earl declared that he would be hanged as well rather than again
undertake such a charge without being assured payment for his troops
beforehand!

The valour of Sidney and Essex, Willoughby and Pelham, Roger Williams
and Martin Schenk, was set at nought by such untoward circumstances.
Had not Philip also left his army to starve and Alexander Farnese to
work miracles, it would have fared still worse with Holland and England,