is ability, what: his
influence at court? Why, if he were really of so high quality as had been
reported, was he thus neglected, and at last disgraced? Had he any landed
property in England? Had he really ever held any other office but that of
master of the horse? "And then," asked one particular busy body, who made
himself very unpleasant on the Amsterdam Exchange, "why has her Majesty
forbidden all noblemen and gentlemen from coming hither, as was the case
at the beginning? Is it because she is hearkening to a peace? And if it
be so, quoth he, we are well handled; for if her Majesty hath sent a
disgraced man to amuse us, while she is secretly working a peace for
herself, when we--on the contrary--had broken off all our negotiations,
upon confidence of her Majesty's goodness; such conduct will be
remembered to the end of the world, and the Hollanders will never abide
the name of England again."

On such a bed of nettles there was small chance of repose for the
governor. Some of the rumours were even more stinging. So
incomprehensible did it seem that the proud sovereign of England should
send over her subjects to starve or beg in the streets of Flushing and
Ostend, that it was darkly intimated that Leicester had embezzled the
funds, which, no doubt, had been remitted for the poor soldiers. This was
the most cruel blow of all. The Earl had been put to enormous charges.
His household at the Hague cost him a thousand pounds a month. He had
been paying and furnishing five hundred and fifty men out of his own
purse. He had also a choice regiment of cavalry, numbering seven hundred
and fifty horse; three hundred and fifty of which number were over and
above those allowed for by the Queen, and were entirely at his expense.
He was most liberal in making presents of money to every gentleman in his
employment. He had deeply mortgaged his estates in order to provide for
these heavy demands upon him, and professed his willingness "to spend
more, if he might have got any more money for his land that was left;"
and in the face of such unquestionable facts--much to the credit
certainly of his generosity--he was accused of swindling a Queen whom
neither Jew nor Gentile had ever yet been sharp enough to swindle; while
he was in reality plunging forward in a course of reckless extravagance
in order to obviate the fatal effects of her penuriousness.

Yet these sinister reports were beginning to have a poisonous effect.
Already an altera