London, but James was daily expecting and De Bethune dreading her
arrival.

The ambassador knew very well that, although the king talked big in her
absence about the forms which he intended to prescribe for her conduct,
he would take orders from her as soon as she arrived, refuse her nothing,
conceal nothing from her, and tremble before her as usual.

The king was not specially prejudiced in favour of the French monarch or
his ambassador, for he had been told that Henry had occasionally spoken
of him as captain of arts and doctor of arms, and that both the Marquis
de Rosny and his brother were known to have used highly disrespectful
language concerning him.

Before his audience, De Rosny received a private visit from Barneveld and
the deputies of the States-General, and was informed that since his
arrival they had been treated with more civility by the king. Previously
he had refused to see them after the first official reception, had not
been willing to grant Count Henry of Nassau a private audience, and had
spoken publicly of the States as seditious rebels.

Oh the 21st June Barneveld had a long private interview with the
ambassador at Arundel palace, when he exerted all his eloquence to prove
the absolute necessity of an offensive and defensive alliance between
France and the United Provinces if the independence of the republic were
ever to be achieved. Unless a French army took the field at once, Ostend
would certainly fall, he urged, and resistance to the Spaniards would
soon afterwards cease.

It is not probable that the Advocate felt in his heart so much despair as
his words indicated, but he was most anxious that Henry should openly
declare himself the protector of the young commonwealth, and not
indisposed perhaps to exaggerate the dangers, grave as they were without
doubt, by which its existence was menaced.

The ambassador however begged the Hollander to renounce any such hopes,
assuring him that the king had no intention of publicly and singly taking
upon his shoulders the whole burden of war with Spain, the fruits of
which would not be his to gather. Certainly before there had been time
thoroughly to study the character and inclinations of the British monarch
it would be impossible for De Rosny to hold out any encouragement in this
regard. He then asked Barneveld what he had been able to discover during
his residence in London as to the personal sentiments of James.

The Advocate replied that at fi