History of the United Netherlands, 1588b | Page 4

us poor wretches."
But there was nothing farther from the thoughts of the turbulent fellows than any negotiations with Spain. Maurice was ambitious enough, perhaps, but his ambition ran in no such direction. Willoughby knew better; and thought that by humouring the petulant young man it might be possible to manage him.
"Maurice is young," he said, "hot-headed; coveting honour. If we do but look at him through our fingers, without much words, but with providence enough, baiting his hook a little to his appetite, there is no doubt but he might be caught and kept in a fish-pool; while in his imagination he may judge it a sea. If not, 'tis likely he will make us fish in troubled waters."
Maurice was hardly the fish for a mill-pond even at that epoch, and it might one day be seen whether or not he could float in the great ocean of events. Meanwhile, he swam his course without superfluous gambols or spoutings.
The commander of her Majesty's forces was not satisfied with the States, nor their generals, nor their politicians. "Affairs are going 'a malo in pejus,'" he said. "They embrace their liberty as apes their young. To this end are Counts Hollock and Maurice set upon the stage to entertain the popular sort. Her Majesty and my Lord of Leicester are not forgotten. The Counts are in Holland, especially Hollock, for the other is but the cipher. And yet I can assure you Maurice hath wit and spirit too much for his time."
As the troubles of the interregnum increased Willoughby was more dissatisfied than ever with the miserable condition of the Provinces, but chose to ascribe it to the machinations of the States' party, rather than to the ambiguous conduct of Leicester. "These evils," he said, "are especially, derived from the childish ambition of the young Count Maurice, from the covetous and furious counsels of the proud Hollanders, now chief of the States-General, and, if with pardon it may be said, from our slackness and coldness to entertain our friends. The provident and wiser sort--weighing what a slender ground the appetite of a young man is, unfurnished with the sinews of war to manage so great a cause--for a good space after my Lord of Leicester's departure, gave him far looking on, to see him play has part on the stage."
Willoughby's spleen caused him to mix his metaphors more recklessly than strict taste would warrant, but his violent expressions painted the relative situation of parties more vividly than could be done by a calm disquisition. Maurice thus playing his part upon the stage--as the general proceeded to observe--"was a skittish horse, becoming by little and little assured of what he had feared, and perceiving the harmlessness thereof; while his companions, finding no safety of neutrality in so great practices, and no overturning nor barricado to stop his rash wilded chariot, followed without fear; and when some of the first had passed the bog; the rest, as the fashion is, never started after. The variable democracy; embracing novelty, began to applaud their prosperity; the base and lewdest sorts of men, to whom there is nothing more agreeable than change of estates, is a better monture to degrees than their merit, took present hold thereof. Hereby Paul Buys, Barneveld, and divers others, who were before mantled with a tolerable affection, though seasoned with a poisoned intention, caught the occasion, and made themselves the Beelzebubs of all these mischiefs, and, for want of better angels, spared not to let fly our golden-winged ones in the name of guilders, to prepare the hearts and hands that hold money more dearer than honesty, of which sort, the country troubles and the Spanish practices having suckled up many, they found enough to serve their purpose. As the breach is safely saltable where no defence is made, so they, finding no head, but those scattered arms that were disavowed, drew the sword with Peter, and gave pardon with the Pope, as you shall plainly perceive by the proceedings at Horn. Thus their force; fair words, or corruption, prevailing everywhere, it grew to this conclusion--that the worst were encouraged with their good success, and the best sort assured of no fortune or favour."
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