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 human freedom wherever it dared to manifest
itself, with fine phrases of religion and order for ever in his mouth,
on deceiving his friends and enemies alike, as to his nefarious and
almost incredible designs, by means of perpetual and colossal falsehoods;
and if such lessons deserve to be pondered, as a source of instruction