There were also certain vague attempts made by the enemy to re-possess himself of those most important seaports which had been pledged to the English queen.  On a previous page the anxiety has been indicated with which Sir Robert Sydney regarded the withdrawal of the English troops in the Netherlands for the sake of assisting the French king.  This palpable breach of the treaty had necessarily weakened England’s hold on the affections of the Netherlanders, and awakened dark suspicions that treason might be impending at Flushing or Ostend.  The suspicions were unjust—­so far as the governors of those places were concerned—­for Sydney and Norris were as loyal as they were intelligent and brave; but the trust in their characters was not more implicit than it had been in that of Sir William Stanley before the commission of his crime.  It was now believed that the enemy was preparing for a sudden assault upon Ostend, with the connivance, it was feared, of a certain portion of the English garrison.  The intelligence was at once conveyed to her Majesty’s Government by Sir Edward Norris, and they determined to take a lesson from past experience.  Norris was at once informed that in view of the attack which he apprehended, his garrison should be strengthened by five hundred men under Sir Conyers Clifford from certain companies in Flushing, and that other reinforcements should be sent from the English troops in Normandy.  The governor was ordered to look well after his captains and soldiers, to remind them, in the queen’s name, of their duty to herself and to the States, to bid all beware of sullying the English name, to make close investigations into any possible intrigues of the garrison with the enemy, and, should any culprits be found, to bring them at once to condign punishment.

The queen, too, determined that there should be no blighting of English honour, if she could prevent it by her warnings, indited with her own hand a characteristic letter to Sir Edward Norris, to accompany the more formal despatch of Lord Burghley.  Thus it ran “Ned!—­

“Though you have some tainted sheep among your flock, let not that serve for excuse for the rest.  We trust you are so carefully regarded as nought shall be left for your excuses, but either ye lack heart or want will; for of fear we will not make mention, as that our soul abhors, and we assure ourselves you will never discern suspicion of it.  Now or never let for the honour of us and our nation, each man be so much of bolder heart as their cause is good, and their honour must be according, remembering the old goodness of our God, who never yet made us fail His needful help, who ever bless you as I with my prince’s hand beseech Him.”

The warnings and preparations proved sufficiently effective, and the great schemes with which the new royal governor of the Netherlands was supposed to be full—­a mere episode in which was the conquest of Ostend—­ seemed not so formidable as their shadows had indicated.  There was, in the not very distant future, to be a siege of Ostend, which the world would not soon forget, but perhaps the place would not yield to a sudden assault.  Its resistance, on the contrary, might prove more protracted than was then thought possible.  But the chronicle of events must not be anticipated.  For the present, Ostend was safe.