What man could do, without money and without authority, he had done.

The governors for Flushing and the Brill, Sir Philip Sidney and Sir Thomas Cecil, eldest son of Lord Burghley, had been appointed, but had not arrived.
Their coming was anxiously looked for, as during the interval the condition of the garrisons was deplorable.

The English treasurer--by some unaccountable and unpardonable negligence, for which it is to be feared the Queen was herself to blame--was not upon the spot, and Davison was driven out of his wits to devise expedients to save the soldiers from starving.
"Your Lordship has seen by my former letters," wrote the Ambassador to Burghley from Flushing, "what shift I have been driven to for the relief of this garrison here, left 'a l'abandon;' without which means they had all fallen into wild and shameful disorder, to her Majesty's great disgrace and overthrow of her service.

I am compelled, unless I would see the poor men famish, and her Majesty dishonoured, to try my poor credit for them." General Sir John Norris was in the Betuwe, threatening Nvymegen, a town which he found "not so flexible as he had hoped;" and, as he had but two thousand men, while Alexander Farnese was thought to be marching upon him with ten thousand, his position caused great anxiety.

Meantime, his brother, Sir Edward, a hot-headed and somewhat wilful young man, who "thought that all was too little for him," was giving the sober Davison a good deal of trouble.