In the midst of these plottings, real or supposed, a party of armed men, one fine summer’s morning, suddenly entered Paul’s bedroom as he lay asleep at the house of the burgomaster, seized his papers, and threw him:  into prison in the wine-cellar of the town-house.  “Oh my papers, oh my papers!” cried the unfortunate politician, according to Leicester’s statement, “the Queen of England will for ever hate me.”  The Earl disavowed all, participation in the arrest; but he was not believed.  He declared himself not sorry that the measure had been taken, and promised that he would not “be hasty to release him,” not doubting that “he would be found faulty enough.”  Leicester maintained that there was stuff enough discovered to cost Paul his head; but he never lost his head, nor was anything treasonable or criminal ever found against him.  The intrigue with Denmark—­never proved—­and commenced, if undertaken at all, in utter despair of Elizabeth’s accepting the sovereignty, was the gravest charge.  He remained, however, six months in prison, and at the beginning of 1587 was released, without trial or accusation, at the request of the English Queen.

The States could hardly be blamed for their opposition to the Earl’s administration, for he had thrown himself completely into the arms of a faction, whose object was to vilipend and traduce them, and it was now difficult for him to recover the functions of which the Queen had deprived him.  “The government they had given from themselves to me stuck in their stomachs always,” he said.  Thus on the one side, the States were,” growing more stately than ever,” and were-always “jumbling underhand,” while the aristocratic Earl, on, his part, was resolute not to be put down by “churls and tinkers.”  He was sure that the people were with him, and that, “having always been governed by some prince, they, never did nor could consent to be ruled by bakers, brewers, and hired advocates.  I know they hate them,” said this high-born tribune of the people.  He was much disgusted with the many-headed chimaera, the monstrous republic, with which he found himself in such unceasing conflict, and was disposed to take a manful stand.  “I have been fain of late,” he said, “to set the better leg foremost, to handle some of my masters somewhat plainly; for they thought I would droop; and whatsoever becomes of me, you shall hear I will keep my reputation, or die for it.”

But one great accusation, made against the churls and tinkers, and bakers and hired advocates, and Mr. Paul Buys at their head, was that they were liberal towards the Papists.  They were willing that Catholics should remain in the country and exercise the rights of citizens, provided they, conducted themselves like good citizens.  For this toleration—­a lesson which statesmen like Buys and Barneveld had learned in the school of William the Silent—­the opposition-party were denounced as bolsterers of Papists, and Papists themselves at heart, and “worshippers of idolatrous idols.”