going monarch, but he gave infinite trouble to the Dutch ambassador
Aerssens, who, feeling himself under immense obligations to the Advocate
and professing for him boundless gratitude, did his best to keep the
idle, turbulent, extravagant, and pleasure-loving youth up to the strict
line of his duties.

"Your son is in debt again," wrote Aerssens, on one occasion, "and
troubled for money. He is in danger of going to the usurers. He says he
cannot keep himself for less than 200 crowns a month. This is a large
allowance, but he has spent much more than that. His life is not
irregular nor his dress remarkably extravagant. His difficulty is that
he will not dine regularly with me nor at court. He will keep his own
table and have company to dinner. That is what is ruining him. He comes
sometimes to me, not for the dinner nor the company, but for tennis,
which he finds better in my faubourg than in town. His trouble comes
from the table, and I tell you frankly that you must regulate his
expenses or they will become very onerous to you. I am ashamed of them
and have told him so a hundred times, more than if he had been my own
brother. It is all for love of you . . . . I have been all to him
that could be expected of a man who is under such vast obligations to
you; and I so much esteem the honour of your friendship that I should
always neglect my private affairs in order to do everything for your
service and meet your desires . . . . . If M. de Craimgepolder comes
back from his visit home, you must restrict him in two things, the table
and tennis, and you can do this if you require him to follow the King
assiduously as his service requires."

Something at a future day was to be heard of William of Barneveld, as
well as of his elder brother Reinier, and it is good, therefore, to have
these occasional glimpses of him while in the service of the King and