As to his prudent and dignified deportment there was little doubt.

"Count Maurice behaveth himself very discreetly all this while," wrote one, who did not love him, to Leicester, who loved him less: "He cometh every day to the council, keeping no company with Count Hollock, nor with any of them all, and never drinks himself full with any of them, as they do every day among themselves." Certainly the most profitable intercourse that Maurice could enjoy with Hohenlo was upon the battle-field.

In winter-quarters, that hard-fighting, hard-drinking, and most turbulent chieftain, was not the best Mentor for a youth whose destiny pointed him out as the leader of a free commonwealth.

After the campaigns were over--if they ever could be over--the Count and other nobles from the same country were too apt to indulge in those mighty potations, which were rather characteristic of their nation and the age.
"Since your Excellency's departure," wrote Leicester's secretary, "there hath been among the Dutch Counts nothing but dancing and drinking, to the grief of all this people; which foresee that there can come no good of it.

Specially Count Hollock, who hath been drunk almost a fortnight together." Leicester had rendered himself unpopular with the States-General, and with all the leading politicians and generals; yet, at that moment, he had deeply mortgaged his English estates in order to raise funds to expend in the Netherland cause.