the authorities of the republic, against Sir William Stanley's conduct in
Deventer. He had seized the keys of the gates, he kept possession of the
towers and fortifications, he had meddled with the civil government, he
had infringed all their privileges. Yet this was the board of
magistrates, expressly set up by Leicester, with the armed hand, by the
agency of Marshal Pelham and this very Colonel Stanley--a board of
Calvinist magistrates placed but a few weeks before in power to control a
city of Catholic tendencies. And here was a papist commander displaying
Leicester's commission in their faces, and making it a warrant for
dealing with the town as if it were under martial law, and as if he were
an officer of the Duke of Parma. It might easily be judged whether such
conduct were likely to win the hearts of Netherlanders to Leicester and
to England.

"Albeit, for my own part," said Wilkes, "I do hold Sir William Stanley to
be a wise and a discreet gent., yet when I consider that the magistracy
is such as was established by your Lordship, and of the religion, and
well affected to her Majesty, and that I see how heavily the matter is
conceived of here by the States and council, I do fear that all is not
well. The very bruit of this doth begin to draw hatred upon our nation.
Were it not that I doubt some dangerous issue of this matter, and that I
might be justly charged with negligence, if I should not advertise you
beforehand, I would, have forborne to mention this dissension, for the
States are about to write to your Lordship and to her Majesty for
reformation in this matter." He added that he had already written
earnestly to Sir William, "hoping to persuade him to carry a mild hand
over the people."

Thus wrote Councillor Wilkes, as in duty bound, to Lord Leicester, so
early as the 9th December, and the warning voice of Norris had made