Not less manful and statesmanlike was the language held to the King of Great Britain and his ministers by the Advocate’s directions.  The news of the assassination reached the special ambassadors in London at three o’clock of Monday, the 17th May.  James returned to Whitehall from a hunting expedition on the 21st, and immediately signified his intention of celebrating the occasion by inviting the high commissioners of the States to a banquet and festival at the palace.

Meantime they were instructed by Barneveld to communicate the results of the special embassy of the States to the late king according to the report just delivered to the Assembly.  Thus James was to be informed of the common resolution and engagement then taken to support the cause of the princes.  He was now seriously and explicitly to be summoned to assist the princes not only with the stipulated 4000 men, but with a much greater force, proportionate to the demands for the security and welfare of Christendom, endangered by this extraordinary event.  He was assured that the States would exert themselves to the full measure of their ability to fortify and maintain the high interests of France, of the possessory princes, and of Christendom, so that the hopes of the perpetrators of the foul deed would be confounded.

“They hold this to be the occasion,” said the envoys, “to show to all the world that it is within your power to rescue the affairs of France, Germany, and of the United Provinces from the claws of those who imagine for themselves universal monarchy.”

They concluded by requesting the King to come to “a resolution on this affair royally, liberally, and promptly, in order to take advantage of the time, and not to allow the adversary to fortify himself in his position”; and they pledged the States-General to stand by and second him with all their power.

The commissioners, having read this letter to Lord Salisbury before communicating it to the King, did not find the Lord Treasurer very prompt or sympathetic in his reply.  There had evidently been much jealousy at the English court of the confidential and intimate relations recently established with Henry, to which allusions were made in the documents read at the present conference.  Cecil, while expressing satisfaction in formal terms at the friendly language of the States, and confidence in the sincerity of their friendship for his sovereign, intimated very plainly that more had passed between the late king and the authorities of the Republic than had been revealed by either party to the King of Great Britain, or than could be understood from the letters and papers now communicated.  He desired further information from the commissioners, especially in regard to those articles of their instructions which referred to a general rupture.  They professed inability to give more explanations than were contained in the documents themselves.  If suspicion was felt, they said, that the French King had been proposing