The garrison then retired, Sluy’s became Spanish, and a capacious harbour, just opposite the English coast, was in Parma’s hands.  Sir Roger Williams was despatched by Leicester to bear the melancholy tidings to his government, and the Queen was requested to cherish the honest Welshman, and at least to set him on horseback; for he was of himself not rich enough to buy even a saddle.  It is painful to say that the captain did not succeed in getting the horse.

The Earl was furious in his invectives against Hohenlo, against Maurice, against the States, uniformly ascribing the loss of Sluy’s to negligence and faction.  As for Sir John Norris, he protested that his misdeeds in regard to this business would, in King Henry VIII.’s time, have “cost him his pate.”

The loss of Sluys was the beginning and foreshadowed the inevitable end of Leicester’s second administration.  The inaction of the States was one of the causes of its loss.  Distrust of Leicester was the cause of the inaction.  Sir William Russell, Lord Willoughby, Sir William Pelham, and other English officers, united in statements exonerating the Earl from all blame for the great failure to relieve the place.  At the same time, it could hardly be maintained that his expedition to Blanckenburg and his precipitate retreat on the first appearance of the enemy were proofs of consummate generalship.  He took no blame to himself for the disaster; but he and his partisans were very liberal in their denunciations of the Hollanders, and Leicester was even ungrateful enough to censure Roger Williams, whose life had been passed, as it were, at push of pike with the Spaniards, and who was one of his own most devoted adherents.

The Queen was much exasperated when informed of the fall of the city.  She severely denounced the Netherlanders, and even went so far as to express dissatisfaction with the great Leicester himself.  Meantime, Farnese was well satisfied with his triumph, for he had been informed that “all England was about to charge upon him,” in order to relieve the place.  All England, however, had been but feebly represented by three thousand raw recruits with a paltry sum of L15,000 to help pay a long bill of arrears.

Wilkes and Norris had taken their departure from the Netherlands before the termination of the siege, and immediately after the return of Leicester.  They did not think it expedient to wait upon the governor before leaving the country, for they had very good reason to believe that such an opportunity of personal vengeance would be turned to account by the Earl.  Wilkes had already avowed his intention of making his escape without being dandled with leave-takings, and no doubt he was right.  The Earl was indignant when he found that they had given him the slip, and denounced them with fresh acrimony to the Queen, imploring her to wreak full measure of wrath upon their heads; and he well knew that his entreaties would meet with the royal attention.