"No person is exempted from the tongues of evil, speakers; but virtuous and godly men do put all such foolish matter under their feet.

Then there is the Countess of Hoeurs, how much evil talk does one hear about her!" The Princess seemed still more interested and even excited; and the adroit Otheman having thus, as he imagined, very successfully smoothed away her anger, went off to have a little more harmless gossip about the Princess and the Countess, with Madame de Meetkerke, who had sent Leicester the rose from her garden.
But, no sooner, had he gone, than away went her Highness to Madame de Moeurs, "a marvellous wise and well-spoken gentlewoman and a grave," and informed her and the Count, with some trifling exaggeration, that the vile Englishman, secretary to the odious Leicester, had just been there, abusing and calumniating the Countess in most lewd and abominable fashion.

He had also, she protested, used "very evil speeches of all the ladies in the country." For her own part the Princess avowed her determination to have him instantly murdered.

Count Moeurs was quite of the same mind, and desired nothing better than to be one of his executioners.

Accordingly, the next Sunday, when the babbling secretary had gone down to Delft to hear the French sermon, a select party, consisting of Moeurs, Lewis William of Nassau, Count Overstein, and others, set forth for that city, laid violent hands on the culprit, and brought him bodily before Princess Chimay.