to make head against the common foe. They were solemnly
warned of the enormous power and resources of the great king, with whom
it was hopeless for them to protract a struggle sure to end at last in
their uttermost destruction. It was for kings to issue commands; he said,
and for the people to obey; but Philip was full of sweetness, and would
accord them full forgiveness for their manifold sins against him. The
wish to come to the rescue of Christendom, in this extreme peril from the
Turk, was with him paramount to all other considerations.

Such; in brief, was the substance of the long Latin harangue by which it
was thought possible to induce those sturdy republicans and Calvinists to
renounce their vigorous national existence and to fall on their knees
before the most Catholic king. This was understood to be mediation,
statesmanship, diplomacy, in deference to which the world was to pause
and the course of events to flow backwards. Truly, despots and their
lackeys were destined to learn some rude lessons from that vigorous
little commonwealth in the North Sea, before it should have accomplished
its mission on earth.

The States-General dissembled their disgust, however, for it was not
desirable to make open enemies of Sigismund or Rudolph. They refused to
accept a copy of the oration, but they promised to send him a categorical
answer to it in writing. Meantime the envoy had the honour of walking
about the castle with the stadholder, and, in the course of their
promenade, Maurice pointed to the thirty-eight standards taken at the
battle of Turnhout, which hung from the cedarn rafters of the ancient
banquetting hall. The mute eloquence of those tattered banners seemed a
not illogical reply to the diplomatic Paul's rhetoric in regard to the
hopelessness of a contest with Spanish armies.

Next, Van der Werken--pensionary of Leyden, and a classical
scholar--waited upon the envoy with a Latin reply to his harangue,
together with a courteous letter for Sigismund. Both documents were
scathing denunciations of the policy pursued by the King of Spain and by
all his aiders and abettors, and a distinct but polished refusal to
listen to a single word in favour of mediation or of peace.

Paul Dialyn then received a courteous permission to leave the territory
of the republic, and was subsequently forwarded in a States' vessel of
war to England.

His reception, about a month later, by Queen Elizabeth is an event on
which all En