The Netherlanders, especially Paul Buiz, who lodged with Burghley’s servant, Herll, in Redcross Street, did their best to excuse the Flushingers, and begged that “these rough men be not roughly dealt with.” It is evident that they looked upon Leicester and the Puritans as their champions rather than moderate Burghley, whose approaches to Spain at the time were, of course, well known. Herll writes (14th March 1576): “It is given out by those of good sort who profess the religion, that your Lordship has been the only obstacle to this Holland service, by dissuading her Majesty from the enterprise, when the Earl of Leicester and several earnest friends were furtherers thereof. They complain that these poor men who were sent to the Queen have been, contrary to promise, kept by indirect dealing so long here, to their utter undoing at home and abroad. They say that Sir F. Walsingham dealt honestly with them from the first. He said they would get nothing, and lose their time. They say these unworthy proceedings with foreign nations make the English the most hated men in the world, and to be contemned for mere abusers, as those who put on religion and piety and justice for a cloak to serve humours withal. Your Lordship’s enemies, however, are compelled to say that you are more subject to evil judgment for your good service than for evil itself.” When Herll spoke to Paul Buiz about Burghley’s anger at the outrage on Lord Oxford, the Netherlander “struck his breast, and said your Lordship was the only man who had dealt sincerely with them, and truly favoured their cause, and yet was forced to give them hard words, according to the alterations of the time, parties, and occasion, which kind of free proceeding he preferred of all others.”[395]