John represented at the time to Hohenlo and others that the Earl had not been privy to the transaction.  It is very certain, however, that so soon as the general indignation of Hohenlo and his partizans began to be directed against Leicester, he at once denied, in passionate and abusive language, having had any knowledge whatever of Norris’s intentions.  He protested that he learned, for the first time, of the cartel from information furnished to the council of state.

The quarrel between Hohenlo and Norris was afterwards amicably arranged by Lord Buckhurst, during his embassy to the States, at the express desire of the Queen.  Hohenlo and Sir John Norris became very good friends, while the enmity between them and Leicester grew more deadly every day.  The Earl was frantic with rage whenever he spoke of the transaction, and denounced Sir John Norris as “a fool, liar, and coward” on all occasions, besides overwhelming his brother, Buckhurst, Wilkes, and every other person who took their part, with a torrent of abuse; and it is well known that the Earl was a master of Billingsgate.

“Hollock says that I did procure Edward Norris to send him his cartel,” observed Leicester on one occasion, “wherein I protest before the Lord, I was as ignorant as any man in England.  His brother John can tell whether I did not send for him to have committed him for it; but that, in very truth, upon the perusing of it” (after it had been sent), “it was very reasonably written, and I did consider also the great wrong offered him by the Count, and so forbore it.  I was so careful for the Count’s safety after the brawl between him and Norris, that I charged Sir John, if any harm came to the Count’s person by any of his or under him, that he should answer it.  Therefore, I take the story to be bred in the bosom of some much like a thief or villain, whatsoever he were.”

And all this was doubtless true so far as regarded the Earl’s original exertions to prevent the consequences of the quarrel, but did not touch the point of the second correspondence preceded by the conversation in the dining-room, eight days before the voyage to England.  The affair, in itself of slight importance, would not merit so much comment at this late day had it not been for its endless consequences.  The ferocity with which the Earl came to regard every prominent German, Hollander, and Englishman, engaged in the service of the States, sprang very much from the complications of this vulgar brawl.  Norris, Hohenlo, Wilkes, Buckhurst, were all denounced to the Queen as calumniators, traitors, and villains; and it may easily be understood how grave and extensive must have been the effects of such vituperation upon the mind of Elizabeth, who, until the last day of his life, doubtless entertained for the Earl the deepest affection of which her nature was susceptible.  Hohenlo, with Count Maurice, were the acknowledged chiefs of the anti-English party, and the possibility of cordial cooperation between the countries may be judged of by the entanglement which had thus occurred.