History of the United Netherlands, 1590-1599, Vol. III. Complete

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could naturally find but little to her taste in the hierarchy of Hans Brewer and Hans Baker. Thus her Majesty and her courtiers, accustomed to the faded gallantries with which the serious affairs of State were so grotesquely intermingled, took it ill when they were bluntl

t behind those shaggy, overhanging brows there was a powerful brain stored with legal and historic lore, which supplied eloquence to an ever-ready tongue and pen. Yet these facts, difficult to

ation with the Hollanders, not only because of their perpetual

ir merchants, and torture their sea-captains in order to extort information as to the most precious portions of their cargoes. Sharp language against such malpractices was considered but proof of democratic vulgarity. Yet it would be hard to maintain that M

with the arch-enemy of both Holland and England, even in the midst of their conflict with him, and it was complained of that even the munitions of war and the imple

herself with the common enemy, that it was not reasonable to consider cordage or dried fish or shooks and staves, butter, eggs, and corn as contraband of war, that if they were illegitimate the English trade was vitiated to the same degree, and that it would be utterl

to her own hands. It was refreshing to see this great sovereign-who was so well able to grapple with questions of State, and whose very imperiousness of temper impelled her to trample on shallow sophistries and spe

cribed in strong language the royal wrath at the opposition recently made by the States to detaching the English auxiliaries in the Netherlands for the service of the French king in Normandy, hoping thereby to deter him from venturing into her presence with a list of grievances on the part of his government. "I did my best to indicate the danger incurred by such transferring of troops at so critical a moment," said Noel de Canon, "showi

terview with the queen before

to leave between five and six o'clock that evening, and

so good an occasion for using them. I was obliged to cut my replies very short, as it was already between six and seven o'clock, and she was to ride nine English miles to the place where she was to pass the night. I was quite sensible, however; that the audience was arranged to be thus brief, in order that I should not be able to stop long enough to g

al pleading in defence of the practices which had created so much irritation and pecuniary loss in Holland. There was a good deal of talk about want of evidence and conflict of evidence, which, to a man who felt as sure of the facts and of the law as the Dutch envoy did-unless it were according to public law for one friend and, ally to plunder and burn the vessels of another friend and ally-was not encouraging as to the probable issue of his intervi

was by all means necessary for the sake of his own honour. Otherwise no man could ever be made to believe that his Excellen

anger, for the States; that they had been ordered out of Prince Maurice's camp at a most critical moment; that; had it not, been for the Stallholder's promptness and military skill; very great disasters t

hat I had to say, now observed that the States had treated her Majesty very ill, that they had kept h

cial service, and for a special consideration and equivalent, could not honestly be employed, contrary to the wishes of the States-General, upon a totally different service and i

l of the troops. The queen, instantly broke the seal and read the letter to the end. Coming to the concluding passage, in which the States observe

them, and surely the States ought never to make such complaints, when the occasion was such a favourable one, and they had received already sufficient aid from these troops, and had liberated their whole country. I don't comprehend these grievances. They complain that I withdraw my people, and meantime they are still holding them and have brought them ashore again. They send me frivolous excuses that the skippers don't kno

n which this great princess handled the weightiest affairs of state. The transfer of a dozen companies of English infantry from Friesland to Brittany was supposed to be big with the fate of France, England, and t

ithout getting at all into a passion, and, in my opinion, her discourse was

y given her to understand that the enormous outrages which her people were committing at sea upon the Netherlanders were a public scandal. It had made her so angry, she said, that she knew not which way to turn. She would take it in hand at once, for she would rather make oath never more to permit a single

r, several of the sea-captains who have been robbed and outraged have come over with me, as li

s by the council, but should insist upon all due criminal punishment, the infliction of which she promised in the strongest

which had been stolen. The queen looked over it very carefully, declaring it to be her intention that there should be no delays interposed in the conduct

t were her own. It was her intention, she said, that her people were in no wise to trouble the Hollanders in legitimate mercantile pursuits. She added that it was not

justice, and that he had no instructions to claim Spanish property or enemy's goods. He h

rd Treasurer. Meantime the money was to be deposited with certain aldermen of London, and the accused parties kept in prison. The ultimate decision was then to be made by the council, "not by form of process but by commission thereto ordained." In the course of the many interviews which followed between the Dutch envoy and the privy counsellors, the Lord Admiral stated that an English merchant residing in the Netherlands had sent to offer him a present of tw

e court to London, and from London to the court," and it was long before justice was done to the sufferers. Yet the energetic manner in which the queen took the case into her own hands, and the intens

ind were moved at epoch in various parts of Christendom, we shall not find much reason t

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