phrases, and many references to the troubles in Ireland and to the danger
of a new Spanish Armada.

It was now for the first time, moreover, that the States learned how they
had been duped both by England and France in the matter of the League.
To their surprise they were informed that while they were themselves
furnishing four thousand men, according to the contract signed by the
three powers, the queen had in reality only agreed to contribute two
thousand soldiers, and these only for four months' service, within a very
strict territorial limit, and under promise of immediate reimbursement of
the expenses thus incurred.

These facts, together with the avowal that their magnanimous ally had
all along been secretly treating for peace with the common enemy, did not
make a cheerful impression upon those plain-spoken republicans, nor was
it much consolation to them to receive the assurance that "after the
king's death his affection and gratitude towards the States would be
found deeply engraved upon his heart."

The result of such a future autopsy might seem a matter of comparative
indifference, since meantime the present effect to the republic of those
deep emotions was a treacherous desertion. Calvaert, too, who had so
long haunted the king like his perpetual shadow, and who had believed
him--at least so far as the Netherlands were concerned--to be almost
without guile, had been destined after all to a rude awakening. Sick and
suffering, he did not cease, so long as life was in him, to warn the
States-General of the dangers impending over them from the secret
negotiations which their royal ally was doing his best to conceal from
them, and as to which he had for a time succeeded so dexterously in
hoodwinking their envoy himself. But the honest and energetic agent of