The Earl, elevated by the adulation of others, and by his own vanity, into an almost sovereign attitude, saw himself chastised before the world, like an aspiring lackey, by her in whose favour he had felt most secure.

He found, himself, in an instant, humbled and ridiculous.

Between himself and the Queen it was, something of a lovers' quarrel, and he soon found balsam in the hand that smote him.

But though reinstated in authority, he was never again the object of reverence in the land he was attempting to rule.

As he came to know the Netherlanders better, he recognized the great capacity which their statesmen concealed under a plain and sometimes a plebeian exterior, and the splendid grandee hated, where at first he had only despised.