At any rate, it is certain that accusations of such crimes were of ordinary occurrence.

Men were apt to die suddenly if they had mortal enemies, and people would gossip.

At the very same moment, Leicester was deliberately accused not only of murderous intentions towards Hohenlo, but towards Thomas Wilkes and Count Lewis William of Nassau likewise.

A trumpeter, arrested in Friesland, had just confessed that he had been employed by the Spanish governor of that Province, Colonel Verdugo, to murder Count Lewis, and that four other persons had been entrusted with the same commission.

The Count wrote to Verdugo, and received in reply an indignant denial of the charge.