This was the most cruel blow of all.

The Earl had been put to enormous charges.
His household at the Hague cost him a thousand pounds a month.

He had been paying and furnishing five hundred and fifty men out of his own purse.

He had also a choice regiment of cavalry, numbering seven hundred and fifty horse; three hundred and fifty of which number were over and above those allowed for by the Queen, and were entirely at his expense.
He was most liberal in making presents of money to every gentleman in his employment.

He had deeply mortgaged his estates in order to provide for these heavy demands upon him, and professed his willingness "to spend more, if he might have got any more money for his land that was left;" and in the face of such unquestionable facts--much to the credit certainly of his generosity--he was accused of swindling a Queen whom neither Jew nor Gentile had ever yet been sharp enough to swindle; while he was in reality plunging forward in a course of reckless extravagance in order to obviate the fatal effects of her penuriousness.
Yet these sinister reports were beginning to have a poisonous effect.
Already an alteration of mien was perceptible in the States-General.
"Some buzzing there is amongst them," said Leicester, "whatsoever it be.
They begin to deal very strangely within these few days." Moreover the industry of the Poleys, Blunts, and Pagets, had turned these unfavourable circumstances to such good account that a mutiny had been near breaking out among the English troops.