Stanley, but as to all the English commanders, as to the whole English
nation. An Anjou plot, a general massacre, was expected by many, yet
there were no definite grounds for such dark anticipations. In vain had
painstaking, truth-telling Wilkes summoned Stanley to his duty, and
called on Leicester, time after time, to interfere. In vain did Sir John
Norris, Sir John Conway, the members of the state-council, and all others
who should have had authority, do their utmost to avert a catastrophe.
Their hands were all tied by the fatal letter of the 24th November. Most
anxiously did all implore the Earl of Leicester to return. Never was a
more dangerous moment than this for a country to be left to its fate.
Scarcely ever in history was there a more striking exemplification of the
need of a man--of an individual--who should embody the powers and wishes,
and concentrate in one brain and arm, the whole energy, of a
commonwealth. But there was no such man, for the republic had lost its
chief when Orange died. There was much wisdom and patriotism now.
Olden-Barneveld was competent, and so was Buys, to direct the councils of
the republic, and there were few better soldiers than Norris and Hohenlo
to lead her armies against Spain. But the supreme authority had been
confided to Leicester. He had not perhaps proved himself extraordinarily
qualified for his post, but he was the governor-in-chief, and his
departure, without resigning his powers, left the commonwealth headless,
at a moment when singleness of action was vitally important.

At last, very late in January, one Hugh Overing, a haberdasher from
Ludgate Hill, was caught at Rotterdam, on his way to Ireland, with a
bundle of letters from Sir William Stanley, and was sent, as a suspicious
character, to the state-council at the Hague. On the same day, another
Englishman, a small youth, "well-favoured," rejoicing in a "very little
red beard, and in very ragged clothes," unknown by name; but ascertained
to be in the service of Roland York and to have been the bearer of