wit; but, in troth, if any be to be doubted toward the King of
Spain, it is he and his counsellors, for they have been altogether, so
far, French, and so far in mislike with England as they cannot almost
hide it."

And there was still another member of the house of Nassau who was already
an honour to his illustrious race. Count William Lewis, hardly more than
a boy in years, had already served many campaigns, and had been
desperately wounded in the cause for which so much of the heroic blood of
his race had been shed. Of the five Nassau brethren, his father Count
John was the sole survivor, and as devoted as ever to the cause of
Netherland liberty. The other four had already laid down their lives in
its defence. And William Lewis, was worthy to be the nephew of William
and Lewis, Henry and Adolphus, and the son of John. Not at all a
beautiful or romantic hero in appearance, but an odd-looking little man,
with a round bullet-head, close-clipped hair, a small, twinkling,
sagacious eye, rugged, somewhat puffy features screwed whimsically awry,
with several prominent warts dotting, without ornamenting, all that was
visible of a face which was buried up to the ears in a furzy thicket of
yellow-brown beard, the tough young stadholder of Friesland, in his iron
corslet, and halting upon his maimed leg, had come forth with other
notable personages to the Hague.

He wished to do honour heartily and freely to Queen Elizabeth and her
representative. And Leicester was favourably impressed with his new
acquaintance. "Here is another little fellow," he said, "as little as may
be, but one of the gravest and wisest young men that ever I spake withal;
it is the Count Guilliam of Nassau. He governs Friesland; I would every
Province had such another."

Thus, upon the great question which presented itself upon the very
threshold--the nature and extent of the authority to be exercised by
Leicester--the most influential Netherlanders were in favour of a large
and liberal interpretation of his powers. The envoys in England, the
Nassau family Hohenlo, the prominent members of the States, such as the
shrewd, plausible Menin, the "honest and painful" Falk, and the
chancellor of Gelderland--"that very great, wise, old man Leoninus," as
Leicester called him,--were all desirous that he should assume an
absolute governor-generalship over the whole country. This was a grave
and a delicate matter, and needed to be severely scanned, without delay.
B