He had transmitted the accounts just as they had been delivered, certified by the treasurers of the States and by the English paymasters, and the Queen was appalled at the sum-totals.

She could never proceed with such a war as that, she said, and she declined a loan of sixty thousand pounds which the States requested, besides stoutly refusing to advance her darling Robin a penny to pay off the mortgages upon two-thirds of his estates, on which the equity of redemption was fast expiring, or to give him the slightest help in furnishing him forth anew for the wars.
Yet not one of her statesmen doubted that these Netherland battles were English battles, almost as much as if the fighting-ground had been the Isle of Wight or the coast of Kent, the charts of which the statesmen and generals of Spain were daily conning.
Wilkes, too, while defending Leicester stoutly behind his back, doing his best, to explain his short-comings, lauding his courage and generosity, and advocating his beloved theory of popular sovereignty with much ingenuity and eloquence, had told him the truth to his face.

Although assuring him that if he came back soon, he might rule the States "as a schoolmaster doth his boys," he did not fail to set before him the disastrous effects of his sudden departure and of his protracted absence; he had painted in darkest colours the results of the Deventer treason, he had unveiled the cabals against his authority, he had repeatedly and vehemently implored his return; he had, informed the Queen, that notwithstanding some errors of, administration, he was much the fittest man to represent her in the Netherlands, and, that he could accomplish, by reason of his experience, more in three months than any other man could do in a year.

He bad done his best to reconcile the feuds which existed between him and important personages in the Netherlands, he had been the author of the complimentary letters sent to him in the name of the States-General--to the great satisfaction of the Queen--but he had not given up his friendship with Sir John Norris, because he said "the virtues of the man made him as worthy of love as any one living, and because the more he knew him, the more he had cause to affect and to admire him." This was the unpardonable offence, and for this, and for having told the truth about the accounts, Leicester denounced Wilkes to the Queen as a traitor and a hypocrite, and threatened repeatedly to take his life.

He had even the meanness to prejudice Burghley against him--by insinuating to the Lord-Treasurer that he too had been maligned by Wilkes--and thus most effectually damaged the character of the plain-spoken councillor with the Queen and many of her advisers; notwithstanding that he plaintively besought her to "allow him to reiterate his sorry song, as doth the cuckoo, that she would please not condemn her poor servant unheard." Immediate action was taken on the Deventer treason, and on the general relations between the States-General and the English government.
Barneveld immediately drew up a severe letter to the Earl of Leicester.
On the 2nd February Wilkes came by chance into the assembly of the States-General, with the rest of the councillors, and found Barneveld just demanding the public reading of that document.