History of the United Netherlands, 1588a | Page 3

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.
Meantime--while this internal revolution was taking place in the polity
of the commonwealth-the gravest disturbances were its natural
consequence. There were mutinies in the garrisons of Heusden, of
Gertruydenberg, of Medenblik, as alarming, and threatening to become
as chronic in their character, as those extensive military rebellions
which often rendered the Spanish troops powerless at the most critical
epochs. The cause of these mutinies was uniformly, want of pay, the
pretext, the oath to the Earl of Leicester, which was declared
incompatible with the allegiance claimed by Maurice in the name of the
States-General. The mutiny of Gertruydenberg was destined to be
protracted; that of Medenblik, dividing, as it did, the little territory of
Holland in its very heart, it was most important at once to suppress.
Sonoy, however-- who was so stanch a Leicestrian, that his Spanish
contemporaries uniformly believed him to be an Englishman--held out
for a long time, as will be seen, against the threats and even the armed
demonstrations of Maurice and the States.
Meantime the English sovereign, persisting in her delusion, and despite
the solemn warnings of her own wisest counsellors; and the passionate
remonstrances of the States-General of the Netherlands, sent her peace-
commissioners to the Duke of Parma.
The Earl of Derby, Lord Cobham, Sir James Croft, Valentine Dale,
doctor of laws, and former ambassador at Vienna, and Dr. Rogers,
envoys on the part of the Queen, arrived in the Netherlands in February.
The commissioners appointed on the part of Farnese were Count
Aremberg, Champagny, Richardot, Jacob Maas, and Secretary Garnier.
If history has ever furnished a lesson, how an unscrupulous tyrant, who
has determined upon enlarging his own territories at the expense of his
neighbours, upon oppressing human freedom wherever it dared to
manifest itself, with fine phrases of religion and order for ever in his
mouth, on deceiving his friends and enemies alike, as to his nefarious
and almost incredible designs, by means of perpetual and colossal
falsehoods; and if such lessons deserve to be pondered, as a source of
instruction and guidance for every age, then certainly the secret story of
the negotiations by which the wise Queen of England was beguiled,

and her kingdom brought to the verge of ruin, in the spring of 1588, is
worthy of serious attention.
The English commissioners arrived at Ostend. With them came Robert
Cecil, youngest son of Lord-Treasurer Burghley, then twenty-five years
of age.--He had no official capacity, but was sent by his father, that he
might improve his diplomatic talents, and obtain some information as
to the condition of the Netherlands. A slight,