matters knew that this was more than an attack on Leicester and the Queen. It was a preliminary skirmish in the Catholic-Protestant war.
In that year William of Orange met his violent death. The Protector of his country, the leader, who had inspired his countrymen to fight against the Spanish tyranny, was gone.
The Netherlanders were turning desperate eyes toward England, and Elizabeth was uneasy. War, which she longed to avoid, was being thrust on her. She wanted to hold back, to cling to the prosperity she was building up through peace in her land. But there was no shutting her eyes to the position now. Most of the wool markets in the Netherlands had fallen completely under the Spanish yoke, and the prosperity which had come to England through the wool trade was declining. New markets must be found; but would the English be allowed to find them? Philip had his eyes on England, and he was a fanatic with a mission. In his harbors he was building up the greatest fleet of ships the world had ever known—the Invincible Armada, he called it; and its purpose, all knew, was to sail to the shores of that land whose Queen and whose seamen had so long defied his might.
Elizabeth called her ministers to her. They were in favor of intervention in the Netherlands. They did not feel as she did. They were men who hoped to win power and glory through war. She was only a women, longing to keep her great family of people secure, herself possessing that understanding which told her that even wars which were won brought less gain than continued peace would have brought, without waste of men and gold.
But she could no longer hold back, and the Netherlands were asking that one to whom they could look as a leader be sent to them, one whom they could follow as they had followed their own William of Orange. This was the man who had put himself at the head of the Protestant Party and was, as the world knew, so beloved of the Queen that she would never set him at the head of an enterprise to which she would not give her wholehearted support.
The Netherlands were crying out for Leicester.
And so she gave her consent that he should go.
As she bade him a fond farewell, she thought how handsome he was, how full of enthusiasm and ambition. He appeared to be almost a young man again.
He did not suffer at the parting as she did. He was going in search of honor and that military glory which had always appealed to him.
She must stay behind, following his exploits through dispatches and letters, rejoicing in one fact only: if he were separated from her, he was also separated from his wife.
Robert rode in state through the clean little towns to the sound of rapturous applause. It was as though a lifelong ambition was at last realized. For so many years he had longed to be a King; and these people cheered him, knelt before him, as though he were more than a King—their savior.
It was shortly after his arrival at the Hague that the greatest honor of his life was paid to him.
It was New Year’s morning, and he was dressing in his chamber when a delegation arrived to see him. Without waiting to finish his dressing he went to the antechamber. There the leader of the delegation knelt and told him that Dutchmen, looking upon him as their leader, wished to offer him all those titles which had belonged to the Prince of Orange. He should be Governor, ruler, Stadholder.
Robert was overwhelmed with delight. He had longed all his life for something like this: his own kingdom to rule, a kingdom he owed, not to the good graces of the Queen, but to his own statesmanship and popularity.
This was the great testing time of Robert’s life; and how was he to know that, when honors came easily, the hands did not grow strong enough to hold them, that it was by hard work and achievement only that such strength came? He had been carried up to greatness in a litter prepared for him by a doting woman; when he reached the top the air was too rarified for him without his litter to support him; and these Hollanders were asking him to stand on his own feet. Philip of Spain was close; the Duke of Parma was waiting; and in England there was the Queen,