Willoughby, on his part, now at the English court, was furious with the States, and persuaded the leading counsellors of the Queen as well as her Majesty herself, to adopt his view of the transaction. Wingfield, it was asserted, was quite innocent in the matter; he was entirely ignorant of the French language, and therefore was unable to read a word of the letters addressed to him by Maurice and the replies which had been signed by himself. Whether this strange excuse ought to be accepted or not, it is quite certain that he was no traitor like York and Stanley, and no friend to Spain; for he had stipulated for himself the right to return to England, and had neither received nor desired any reward. He hated Maurice and he hated the States, but he asserted that he had been held in durance, that the garrison was mutinous, and that he was no more responsible for the loss of the city than Sir Francis Vere had been, who had also been present, and whose name had been subsequently withdrawn, in honourable fashion from the list of traitors, by authority of the States. His position--so far as he was personally concerned--seemed defensible, and the Queen was thoroughly convinced of his innocence. Willoughby complained that the republic was utterly in the hands of Barneveld, that no man ventured to lift his voice or his eyes in presence of the terrible Advocate who ruled every Netherlander with a rod of iron, and that his violent and threatening language to Wingfield and himself at the dinner- table in Bergen-op-Zoom on the subject of the mutiny (when one hundred of the Gertruydenberg garrison were within sound of his voice) had been the chief cause of the rebellion. Inspired by these remonstrances, the Queen once more emptied the vials of her wrath upon the United Netherlands. The criminations and recriminations seemed endless, and it was most fortunate that Spain had been weakened, that Alexander, a prey to melancholy and to lingering disease, had gone to the baths of Spa to recruit his shattered health, and that his attention and the schemes of Philip for the year 1589 and the following period were to be directed towards France. Otherwise the commonwealth could hardly have escaped still more severe disasters than those already experienced in this unfortunate condition of its affairs, and this almost hopeless misunderstanding with its most important and vigorous friend.