But Valk and Menin were too old politicians to be caught in such a trap, and they produced a brief, drawn up in Italian--the foreign language best understood by the Earl--with his own corrections and interlineations, so that he was forced to admit that there had been no misconception.
Leicester at last could no longer doubt that he was universally odious in the Provinces.

Hohenlo, Barneveld, and the rest, who had "championed the country against the peace," were carrying all before them.

They had persuaded the people, that the "Queen was but a tickle stay for them," and had inflated young Maurice with vast ideas of his importance, telling him that he was "a natural patriot, the image of his noble father, whose memory was yet great among them, as good reason, dying in their cause, as he had done." The country was bent on a popular government, and on maintaining the war.

There was no possibility, he confessed, that they would ever confer the authority on him which they had formerly bestowed.
The Queen had promised, when he left England the second time, that his absence should be for but three months, and he now most anxiously claimed permission to depart.

Above all things, he deprecated being employed as a peace-commissioner.