Catalogue description GEORGE GILPIN to LORD WILLOUGHBY, at Court.

--I received a very sharp letter of the last of April, containing no answer to any of mine, "so as we neither could understand how these proceedings here are there taken, neither yet how that we might best deal here, to be there liked." I impute it to your Lordship's sickness, yet think that some of your secretaries or others (it being for your Lordship's service) might have advertised us.

At your being here, it was one of the chiefest faults your Honour ever found, that you could not tell how to proceed because of slender advertisements from home. Even in the same predicament are we, and therefore, if we answer not what is expected of us, let this be our excuse.

My Lord of Buckhurst will do much good and is greatly wished here. The sooner it fall out, the better it will be, considering how the enemy seeks to oppress us daily. Van Houte will tell you all things at large, since whose departure the Deputies for England are also gone.

The enemy advances daily towards the Hemersweert, having lately taken the fort of Doueren, an entrance into the same. It is thought he will leave Heusden on one side and march directly to Warkendam, where we hear he intends to attempt the fort or else make another beside it, and there to make a bridge over the river into the Dortsweert, and so have an open passage to Schoonhoven.

Count Maurice is gone to Gorcum, both to animate the people and to give order to keep and stop the passages, but it is greatly feared he is too weak, and that, for want of men, he must abandon the field and retire into the towns. Some think the enemy will pass into the Betuwe, and "have a saying unto all those little towns," which are weak and slenderly provided. Schenck is here, but not yet satisfied. "Berck stands in those terms as it must be presently either seconded or abandoned. Blienbeeck standeth in state to be lost, having endured the cannon. In Utrecht all remains more solito."