Thus the Prince developed his ideas at great length, and accused the Advocate behind his back, and without the faintest shadow of proof, of base treachery to his friends and of high-treason.  Surely Barneveld was in danger, and was walking among pitfalls.  Most powerful and deadly enemies were silently banding themselves together against him.  Could he long maintain his hold on the slippery heights of power, where he was so consciously serving his country, but where he became day by day a mere shining mark for calumny and hatred?

The Ambassador then signified to the Prince that he had been instructed to carry to him the King’s purpose to confer on him the Order of the Garter.

“If his Majesty holds me worthy of so great honour,” said the Prince, “I and my family shall ever remain bound to his service and that of his royal posterity.

“That the States should be offended I see no cause, but holding the charge I do in their service, I could not accept the honour without first acquainting them and receiving their approbation.”

Winwood replied that, as the King knew the terms on which the Prince lived with the States, he doubted not his Majesty would first notify them and say that he honoured the mutual amity between his realms and these Provinces by honouring the virtues of their general, whose services, as they had been most faithful and affectionate, so had they been accompanied with the blessings of happiness and prosperous success.

Thus said Winwood to the King:  “Your Majesty may plaster two walls with one trowel (’una fidelia duos dealbare parietes’), reverse the designs of them who to facilitate their own practices do endeavour to alienate your affections from the good of these Provinces, and oblige to your service the well-affected people, who know that there is no surety for themselves, their wives and children, but under the protection of your Majesty’s favour.  Perhaps, however, the favourers of Vorstius and Arminius will buzz into the ears of their associates that your Majesty would make a party in these Provinces by maintaining the truth of religion and also by gaining unto you the affections of their chief commander.  But your Majesty will be pleased to pass forth whose worthy ends will take their place, which is to honour virtue where you find it, and the suspicious surmises of malice and envy in one instant will vanish into smoke.”

Winwood made no scruple in directly stating to the English government that Barneveld’s purpose was to “cause a divorce between the King’s realms and the Provinces, the more easily to precipitate them into the arms of Spain.”  He added that the negotiation with Count Maurice then on foot was to be followed, but with much secrecy, on account of the place he held in the State.

Soon after the Ambassador’s secret conversation with Maurice he had an interview with Barneveld.  He assured the Advocate that no contentment could be given to his Majesty but by the banishment of Vorstius.  “If the town of Leyden should understand so much,” replied Barneveld, “I fear the magistrates would retain him still in their town.”