ts, by thousands and tens of thousands, so long as Charles V.
and Philip II. had ruled the territory of that commonwealth. Humanity had
acquired something by the war which the Netherlanders had been waging for
twenty years, and no man or woman was ever put to death for religious
causes after the establishment of the republic.

With his hands thus full of business, it was difficult for the Earl to
obey the Queen's command not to meddle in religious matters; for he was
not of the stature of William the Silent, and could not comprehend that
the great lesson taught by the sixteenth century was that men were not to
meddle with men in matters of religion.

But besides his especial nightmare--Mr. Paul Buys--the governor-general
had a whole set of incubi in the Norris family. Probably no two persons
ever detested each other more cordially than did Leicester and Sir John
Norris. Sir John had been commander of the forces in the Netherlands
before Leicester's arrival, and was unquestionably a man of larger
experience than the Earl. He had, however, as Walsingham complained,
acquired by his services in "countries where neither discipline military
nor religion carried any sway," a very rude and licentious kind of
government. "Would to God," said the secretary, "that, with his value and
courage, he carried the mind and reputation of a religious soldier." But
that was past praying for. Sir John was proud, untractable, turbulent,
very difficult to manage. He hated Leicester, and was furious with Sir
William Pelham, whom Leicester had made marshal of the camp. He
complained, not unjustly, that from the first place in the army, which he
had occupied in the Netherlands, he had been reduced to the fifth. The
governor-general--who chose to call Sir John the son of his ancient
enemy, the Earl of Sussex--often denounced him in good set terms. "His
brother Edward is as ill as he," he said, "but John is right the late
Earl of Sussex' son; he will so dissemble and crouch, and so cunningly
carry his doings, as no man living would imagine that there were half the
malice or vindictive mind that plainly his words prove to be." Leicester
accused him of constant insubordination, insolence, and malice,
complained of being traduced by him everywhere in the Netherlands and in
England, and declared that he was followed about by "a pack of lewd
audacious fellows," whom the Earl vowed he would hang, one and all,
before he had done with them. He swore openly