On 30 May 1697 King William III of England received an extraordinary letter from his favourite of three decades, fellow Dutchman Hans Bentinck, 1st Earl of Portland. Bentinck wrote:

Sire … the kindness that you have for a young man and the way it seems to authorize these freedoms and these heights, make the world say things that make me ashamed to hear … I thought it was the mischievous in England alone who made these bloody things! but I was struck like thunder when I saw that The Hague and the army provided the same speeches and tarnished a reputation that has never been subject to such attacks.