Out of all this hubbub of stage-actors, skittish horses, rash wilded chariots, bogs, Beelzebubs, and golden-winged angels, one truth was distinctly audible; that Beelzebub, in the shape of Barneveld, had been getting the upper hand in the Netherlands, and that the Lecestrians were at a disadvantage.  In truth those partisans were becoming extremely impatient.  Finding themselves deserted by their great protector, they naturally turned their eyes towards Spain, and were now threatening to sell themselves to Philip.  The Earl, at his departure, had given them privately much encouragement.  But month after month had passed by while they were waiting in vain for comfort.  At last the “best”—­that is to say, the unhappy Leicestrians—­came to Willoughby, asking his advice in their “declining and desperate cause.”

“Well nigh a month longer,” said that general, “I nourished them with compliments, and assured them that my Lord of Leicester would take care of them.”  The diet was not fattening.  So they began to grumble more loudly than ever, and complained with great bitterness of the miserable condition in which they had been left by the Earl, and expressed their fears lest the Queen likewise meant to abandon them.  They protested that their poverty, their powerful foes, and their slow friends, would compel them either to make their peace with the States’ party, or “compound with the enemy.”

It would have seemed that real patriots, under such circumstances, would hardly hesitate in their choice, and would sooner accept the dominion of “Beelzebub,” or even Paul Buys, than that of Philip ii.  But the Leicestrians of Utrecht and Friesland—­patriots as they were—­hated Holland worse than they hated the Inquisition.  Willoughby encouraged them in that hatred.  He assured him of her Majesty’s affection for them, complained of the factious proceedings of the States, and alluded to the unfavourable state of the weather, as a reason why—­near four months long—­they had not received the comfort out of England which they had a right to expect.  He assured them that neither the Queen nor Leicester would conclude this honourable action, wherein much had been hazarded, “so rawly and tragically” as they seemed to fear, and warned them, that “if they did join with Holland, it would neither ease nor help them, but draw them into a more dishonourable loss of their liberties; and that, after having wound them in, the Hollanders would make their own peace with the enemy.”

It seemed somewhat unfair-while the Queen’s government was straining every nerve to obtain a peace from Philip, and while the Hollanders were obstinately deaf to any propositions for treating—­that Willoughby should accuse them of secret intentions to negotiate.  But it must be confessed that faction has rarely worn a more mischievous aspect than was presented by the politics of Holland and England in the winter and spring of 1588.