“To spend the time,” said he, “in private brabbles and piques between the States and Lord Leicester, when we ought to prepare an army against the enemy, and to repair the shaken and torn state, is not a good course for her Majesty’s service.”  Letters were continually circulating from hand to hand among the antagonists of the Holland party, written out of England by Leicester, exciting the ill-will of the populace against the organized government.  “By such means to bring the States into hatred,” said Buckhurst, “and to stir up the people against them; tends to great damage and miserable end.  This his Lordship doth full little consider, being the very way to dissolve all government, and so to bring all into confusion, and open the door for the enemy.  But oh, how lamentable a thing it is, and how doth my Lord of Leicester abuse her Majesty, making her authority the means to uphold and justify, and under her name to defend and maintain, all his intolerable errors.  I thank God that neither his might nor his malice shall deter me from laying open all those things which my conscience knoweth, and which appertaineth to be done for the good of this cause and of her Majesty’s service.  Herein, though I were sure to lose my life, yet will I not offend neither the one nor the other, knowing very well that I must die; and to die in her Majesty’s faithful service, and with a good conscience, is far more happy than the miserable life that I am in.  If Leicester do in this sort stir up the people against the States to follow his revenge against them, and if the Queen do yield no better aid, and the minds of Count Maurice and Hohenlo remain thus in fear and hatred of him, what good end or service can be hoped for here?”—­[Buckhurst to Walsingham, 13th June, 1587. (Brit.  Mus.  Galba, D. I. p. 95, Ms.)]

Buckhurst was a man of unimpeached integrity and gentle manners.  He had come over with the best intentions towards the governor-general, and it has been seen that he boldly defended him in, his first interviews with the States.  But as the intrigues and underhand plottings of the Earl’s agents were revealed to him, he felt more and more convinced that there was a deep laid scheme to destroy the government, and to constitute a virtual and absolute sovereignty for Leicester.  It was not wonderful that the States were standing vigorously on the defensive.

The subtle Deventer, Leicester’s evil genius, did not cease to poison the mind of the governor, during his protracted absence, against all persons who offered impediments to the cherished schemes of his master and himself.  “Your Excellency knows very well,” he said, “that the state of this country is democratic, since, by failure of a prince, the sovereign disposition of affairs has returned to the people.  That same people is everywhere so incredibly affectionate towards you that the delay in your return drives them to extreme despair.  Any one who would know the real truth has but to remember the fine fear the States-General were in when the news of your displeasure about the 4th February letter became known.”