enriched, renewed a previously unsuccessful suit. The widow then,
partially keeping her promise, actually celebrated her nuptials on the
appointed evening; but, to the surprise of the Provinces, she became not
the 'haulte et puissante dame de Champagny,' but Mrs. Aristotle Patton.

For this last treason neither Leicester nor the English were responsible.
Patton was not only a Scot, but a follower of Hohenlo, as Leicester
loudly protested. Le Merchant was a Frenchman. But Deventer and Zutphen
were places of vital importance, and Stanley an Englishman of highest
consideration, one who had been deemed worthy of the command in chief in
Leicester's absence. Moreover, a cornet in the service of the Earl's
nephew, Sir Robert Sidney, had been seen at Zutphen in conference with
Tassis; and the horrible suspicion went abroad that even the illustrious
name of Sidney was to be polluted also. This fear was fortunately false,
although the cornet was unquestionably a traitor, with whom the enemy had
been tampering; but the mere thought that Sir Robert Sidney could betray
the trust reposed in him was almost enough to make the still unburied
corpse of his brother arise from the dead.

Parma was right when he said that all confidence of the Netherlanders in
the Englishmen would now be gone, and that the Provinces would begin to
doubt their best friends. No fresh treasons followed, but they were
expected every day. An organized plot to betray the country was believed
in, and a howl of execration swept through the land. The noble deeds of
Sidney and Willoughby, and Norris and Pelham, and Roger Williams, the
honest and valuable services of Wilkes, the generosity and courage of
Leicester, were for a season forgotten. The English were denounced in
every city and village of the Netherlands as traitors and miscreants.
Respectable English merchants went from hostelry to hostelry, and from
town to town, and were refused a lodging for love or money. The nation