No sooner was the vote taken, than an English courier entered the council-chamber, with pressing despatches from Lord Leicester.  The letters were at once read.  The Earl announced his speedy arrival, and summoned both the States-General and the council to meet him at Dort, where his lodgings were already taken.  All were surprised, but none more than Buckhurst, Wilkes, and Norris; for no intimation of this sudden resolution had been received by them, nor any answer given to various propositions, considered by her Majesty as indispensable preliminaries to the governor’s visit.

The council adjourned till after dinner, and Buckhurst held conference meantime with various counsellors and deputies.  On the reassembling of the board, it was urged by Barneveld, in the name of the States, that the election of Prince Maurice should still hold good.  “Although by these letters,” said he, “it would seem that her Majesty had resolved upon the speedy return of his Excellency, yet, inasmuch as the counsels and resolutions of princes are often subject to change upon new occasion, it does not seem fit that our late purpose concerning Prince Maurice should receive any interruption.”

Accordingly, after brief debate, both resolutions, voted in the morning, were confirmed in the afternoon.

“So now,” said Wilkes, “Maurice is general of all the forces, ’et quid sequetur nescimus.’”

But whatever else was to follow, it was very certain that Wilkes would not stay.  His great enemy had sworn his destruction, and would now take his choice, whether to do him to death himself, or to throw him into the clutch of the ferocious Hohenlo.  “As for my own particular,” said the counsellor, “the word is go, whosoever cometh or cometh not,” and he announced to Walsingham his intention of departing without permission, should he not immediately receive it from England.  “I shall stay to be dandled with no love-days nor leave-takings,” he observed.

But Leicester had delayed his coming too long.  The country felt that it-had been trifled with by his:  absence—­at so critical a period—­of seven months.  It was known too that the Queen was secretly treating with the enemy, and that Buckhurst had been privately sounding leading personages upon that subject, by her orders.  This had caused a deep, suppressed indignation.  Over and over again had the English government been warned as to the danger of delay.  “Your length in resolving;” Wilkes had said, “whatsoever your secret purposes may be—­will put us to new plunges before long.”  The mission of Buckhurst was believed to be “but a stale, having some other intent than was expressed.”  And at last, the new plunge had been fairly taken.  It seemed now impossible for Leicester to regain the absolute authority, which he coveted; and which he had for a brief season possessed.  The States-General, under able leaders, had become used to a government which had been forced upon them, and which they had wielded with success.  Holland