“It were an ill lesson,” said Willoughby, “to teach soldiers the, dissimulations of such as follow princes’ courts, in Italy.  For my own part, it is my only end to be loyal and dutiful to my sovereign, and plain to all others that I honour.  I see the finest reynard loses his best coat as well as the poorest sheep.”  He was also a strong Leicestrian, and had imbibed much of the Earl’s resentment against the leading politicians of the States.  Willoughby was sorely in need of council.  That shrewd and honest Welshman—­Roger Williams—­was, for the moment, absent.  Another of the same race and character commanded in Bergen-op-Zoom, but was not more gifted with administrative talent than the general himself.

“Sir Thomas Morgan is a very sufficient, gallant gentleman,” said Willoughby, “and in truth a very old soldier; but we both have need of one that can both give and keep counsel better than ourselves.  For action he is undoubtedly very able, if there were no other means to conquer but only to give blows.”

In brief, the new commander of the English forces in the Netherlands was little satisfied with the States, with the enemy, or with himself; and was inclined to take but a dismal view of the disjointed commonwealth, which required so incompetent a person as he professed himself to be to set it right.

“’Tis a shame to show my wants,” he said, “but too great a fault of duty that the Queen’s reputation be frustrate.  What is my slender experience!  What an honourable person do I succeed!  What an encumbered popular state is left!  What withered sinews, which it passes my cunning to restore!  What an enemy in head greater than heretofore!  And wherewithal should I sustain this burthen?  For the wars I am fitter to obey than to command.  For the state, I am a man prejudicated in their opinion, and not the better liked of them that have earnestly followed the general, and, being one that wants both opinion and experience with them I have to deal, and means to win more or to maintain that which is left, what good may be looked for?”

The supreme authority—­by the retirement of Leicester—­was once more the subject of dispute.  As on his first departure, so also on this his second and final one, he had left a commission to the state-council to act as an executive body during his absence.  But, although he—­nominally still retained his office, in reality no man believed in his return; and the States-General were ill inclined to brook a species of guardianship over them, with which they believed themselves mature enough to dispense.  Moreover the state-council, composed mainly of Leicestrians, would expire, by limitation of its commission, early in February of that year.  The dispute for power would necessarily terminate, therefore, in favour of the States-General.