st departure, so also on this his second
and final one, he had left a commission to the state-council to act as an
executive body during his absence. But, although he--nominally still
retained his office, in reality no man believed in his return; and the
States-General were ill inclined to brook a species of guardianship over
them, with which they believed themselves mature enough to dispense.
Moreover the state-council, composed mainly of Leicestrians, would
expire, by limitation of its commission, early in February of that year.
The dispute for power would necessarily terminate, therefore, in favour
of the States-General.

Meantime--while this internal revolution was taking place in the polity
of the commonwealth-the gravest disturbances were its natural
consequence. There were mutinies in the garrisons of Heusden, of
Gertruydenberg, of Medenblik, as alarming, and threatening to become as
chronic in their character, as those extensive military rebellions which
often rendered the Spanish troops powerless at the most critical epochs.
The cause of these mutinies was uniformly, want of pay, the pretext, the
oath to the Earl of Leicester, which was declared incompatible with the
allegiance claimed by Maurice in the name of the States-General. The
mutiny of Gertruydenberg was destined to be protracted; that of
Medenblik, dividing, as it did, the little territory of Holland in its
very heart, it was most important at once to suppress. Sonoy,
however--who was so stanch a Leicestrian, that his Spanish contemporaries
uniformly believed him to be an Englishman--held out for a long time, as
will be seen, against the threats and even the armed demonstrations of
Maurice and the States.

Meantime the English sovereign, persisting in her delusion, and despite
the solemn warnings of her own wisest counsellors; and the passionate
remonstrances of the States-General of the Netherlands, sent her
peace-commissioners to the Duke of Parma.

The Earl of Derby, Lord Cobham, Sir James Croft, Valentine Dale, doctor
of laws, and former ambassador at Vienna, and Dr. Rogers, envoys on the
part of the Queen, arrived in the Netherlands in February. The
commissioners appointed on the part of Farnese were Count Aremberg,
Champagny, Richardot, Jacob Maas, and Secretary Garnier.

If history has ever furnished a lesson, how an unscrupulous tyrant, who
has determined upon enlarging his own territories at the expense of his
neighbours, upon oppressing