Throughout the Netherlands the Inquisition was again formally and

officially proclaimed; it was answered by a cry of passionate wrath and

hate, and bitter despair and agony, intense enough to have reached

Philip in the cells of the Escorial.

Foreign merchants and workers fled, houses of business were shut up,

shops closed, banks ruined; commerce—nay, the ordinary business of

life—was almost suspended; whole districts emigrated, abandoning their

work and their property. In a short time famine threatened, riots broke

out, and the daily barbarous executions were scenes of frantic rage on

the part of the maddened population which the officers of the Crown

sometimes found it difficult or impossible to repress; more than once

the victims were rescued from the very stake.

Brabant hotly protested that the introduction of the Inquisition was

illegal and expressly against the distinct provisions of "the joyous

entry," and the four principal cities came forward with a petition to

Margaret which she could not ignore. The matter was referred to the

Council of Brabant; even the creatures of the Government had to admit

that no ecclesiastical tribunal had ever been allowed jurisdiction in

Brabant, and the great province was declared free of the

Inquisition—with the result that it was soon overcrowded with desperate

refugees from all other parts of the ravaged Netherlands.

Pasquils, lampoons, open letters issued by the thousand from the secret

presses, and every morning saw fresh ones pasted on the gates of the

great nobles in Brussels. Egmont and Orange, as the most powerful and

most popular nobles, were passionately called upon to come forward and

protect the country.

Nor did these people—middle-class artisans, weavers, tanners, dyers,

printers, carvers, merchants, shop-keepers, farmers, all the great mass

of the population, the industrious, sober, quiet men who were slowly

building up the prosperity of the country—lack for generous

championship, even from those nobles who were Catholics.

Baron Montigny, in the first flush of his joyous marriage, the Marquis

Berghen, who had always been unflinching in his refusal to acknowledge

the Inquisition, the younger Mansfeld, refused to enforce the Edicts

within their provinces.

Egmont lent his authority to the work of persecution in Flanders, but

Orange declined to support the Inquisition within his Stadtholderships.

Meanwhile Louis of Nassau was consolidating the famous Compromise or

League of which he and Ste Aldegonde had laid the foundations during

their meeting at Spa, and which had been joined by a considerable number

of the younger nobility; while Hoorne and Orange, Hoogstraaten and

Montigny, had been jousting in the lists at the Château d'Antoine before

the beautiful bride, Hélène d'Espinoy, Louis and Ste Aldegonde were

going from tent to tent, from cavalier to cavalier, laughing, jesting,

and secretly obtaining promises of signatures to the Compromise, which

consisted of a vow to resist "the tyranny of foreigners, and especially

the Holy Inquisition, as contrary to all laws human and divine, and the

mother of all iniquity and disorder."

By early in the new year, the energies of Louis and Ste Aldegonde, both

of whom had been active during the extravagant marriage feasts of the

proud Parma Prince, had secured over two thousand signatures from the

younger nobility.

The great nobles and Stadtholders they did not attempt to approach; the

secret Compromise, being so zealously passed from one eager young hand

to another, was scarcely a document anyone in authority could sign.

But Montigny and Berghen knew of the League, and were prepared to

protect the members; the Prince of Orange, if he did not openly

encourage, at least made no effort to check the ardent labours of his

brother.

The full details of the scheme, nor the heights of daring to which the

covenanters had gone, were not disclosed to him; Louis feared the

disapproval of the Prince's wise patience, and the other young nobles

were even doubtful as to which side His Highness would ultimately

espouse, so delicately did his discretion hold the balance, so

completely was every one in the dark as to his final intentions.

On the very day of the Parma wedding, while the princely couple were

being united with the full magnificence of the rites of the Catholic

Church, twenty gentlemen of the Reformed Faith gathered in the house of

Count Culemburg on the horse market and listened to the preaching of a

famous Huguenot, Francis Junius, the pastor of a secret congregation at

Antwerp. This man, young, brave, eloquent, already in hiding, combined

with Louis of Nassau to draw up a petition or protest to the Government

on the ever-important subject of the Edicts.

So came in the first stormy months of the year 1566.

The price of grain rose to hitherto unheard-of figures, for the ground

was untilled, the harvests unsown; all business with foreign lands was

at a standstill, for no stranger would venture into a country which lay

under such a ban, nor trust their goods in Dutch ports. Industry was

paralysed; the great busy cities, formerly some of the finest and

busiest in the world, were silent, deserted, and desolate under the

monstrous tyranny which had overwhelmed them.

The Inquisitors-General, De Bay and Tiletanus, had received personal

letters of encouragement from the King; Peter Titelmann too received the

Royal praise; and the three continued their work of horror and terror,

agony and blood.

Towards the beginning of the year Berghen resigned his posts, pleading

his inability to obey His Majesty in the matter of religion; Meghem soon

followed his example; Egmont lamented that he had not resigned all his

offices when in Spain—"As he would have done," he declared, "had he

known what His Majesty's intentions were."

He, however, maintained his official position, and continued to behave

with severity against the heretics in Flanders; so he vacillated,

pleasing neither the nobles nor the Regent, neither of whom dared rely

on him.

William addressed a letter of remonstrance and protest to the Duchess,

plainly avowing his views, pointing to the state of the land, and

condemning the policy of the King.

Margaret, in despair, wrote to Philip, putting all these things before

him, and beseeching him to reconsider the decision with regard to the

Inquisition.

Philip did not answer, and William of Orange, who did not lack spies in

Madrid, knew why: the King was preparing the levies with which Alva was

to try his hand at bringing the rebellious Netherlands to subjection.

But if Philip was making busy preparations in secret, William was not

inactive; still hoping by calm and patience to avert the worst of the

disaster that still threatened—the arrival, namely, of Alva's army—he

summoned a meeting of the nobles and grandees at Breda, and in a series

of conferences, disguised as hunting parties, endeavoured to bring all

to concur in some reasonable petition to be presented to the Regent, the

main scope of which was to be an appeal for the convocation of the

States-General.

But this project was too daring for the loyal nobles and too quiet for

the leaguers; the conferences ended with no result, save that of sending

Meghem, alarmed and disgusted by the violence of the younger nobles,

definitely over to the side of the Government.

Indeed, soon after Meghem announced to Margaret his discovery of a

widespread conspiracy among the heretics, who were ready, he declared,

to the number of thirty-five thousand armed men to march against

Brussels, and he placed before the Regent a copy of the Compromise.

These extravagant statements were supported by Egmont, who declared that

there were great tumults preparing among the heretics, and that the

Government must act without delay.

The alarm of the Regent was intense and was scarcely soothed by the

Prince of Orange's calm recital of the sober truth—namely, that a great

number of nobles and gentlemen were coming to Brussels to lay a petition

or request at the feet of the Regent.

Meeting after meeting of councillors, of grandees, of Knights of the

Golden Fleece, were now held, while the question was hotly argued

whether or no the covenanters were to be suffered to present their

petition—the Prince of Orange claiming that they were entitled to all

respect; Meghem, Aremberg, and Barlaymont insisting that the palace

doors should be closed in their faces. The case grew so desperate that

the Duchess proposed to fly to Mons, and was only with difficulty

persuaded to hold her post.

As to the petitioners, it was decided they should be admitted, but

unarmed; the guards at the city gates being strengthened to prevent any

armed followers gaining the entrance to the city.

Brussels ran mad with joy at this concession; it was almost as if the

Inquisition had been abolished.

Margaret of Parma, sick with agitation and dread, shut herself up in her

chamber and wept by the hour together. To her brother she wrote that the

time had now come to either use force or withdraw the Inquisition and

the Edicts. Philip, intent on gathering together Alva's army, kept his

sister in an agony of suspense, and neither let her know that her

successor was already preparing to take her place, nor that he had

finally decided to crush the Netherlands under the weight of the secular

sword, since the spiritual authority of the Inquisition had failed.

All through the tumultuous, anxious days, March sweetening into April,

Rénèe le Meung watched the comings and goings of the Prince from the

window of her high little chamber.

Early in the morning she would be awake and watching till the hour when

he rode forth. Well she came to know that early view of Brussels wrapt

in the blue haze of morning with the gleam of the faint spring sun on

the twin towers of Ste Gudule; well did she come to know the figure of

the man she watched for, his way of sitting the saddle, the trick of

throwing his cloak, the fashion of touching up his horse as he passed

the gates.

Sometimes he did not come before she was called to her duties, and the

vigil would have been in vain; sometimes she was not able to get back to

her post before he returned; but there was hardly a day passed that she

did not contrive to see him once—if it was only that distant glimpse.

She had not spoken to him since he had caught the pigeon for her, and

her days were now entirely occupied with Anne, whose melancholy and fury

daily increased. Since Duprès and all appertaining to him had left the

palace, the Princess hated Rénèe with a bitter, cowering hate that

sometimes cringed and sometimes threatened and sometimes railed, and at

all times made life a torment for the waiting-woman—a torment which was

only endurable because of those moments when she could escape to her

room, and perhaps also because of some inner and consoling conviction

that she was standing at the post of duty, and that perhaps in the great

events, the terrible events so rapidly shaping, she too might take a not

unworthy part.

The very spring itself seemed sad that year; the green on the trees, the

violets and daffodils in the Prince's gardens brought no joyousness with

them; the low winds were laden with melancholy; the long pale days, the

chill nights, the cloudless sunsets, the cold dawns held no comfort nor

cheer.

In Rénèe's mind, as in the mind of every other man and woman of the

Netherlands, was the thought of the fires in the market-places, of the

daily hideous executions, of the cries of agony and despair, bereavement

and madness rising from every town, from every village; of the exiles

fleeing to England, carrying with them their skill, their knowledge,

which was the wealth of the nation; of broken fields and unsown

harvests, of children starving and lamenting in the streets. She thought

of the great, magnificent churches all over the land, where every day

costly and solemn ritual was performed, and where in the grave, rich

gloom of sanctified beauty, gorgeous music, gorgeous vestures, the

loveliness of art, the splendour of texture, marble, silk, tapestry,

coloured glass, crystal, gold, jewels were all dedicated to the service

of the God to Whom were sent up the flames of the living torches which

lit the market-place, to Whom was offered the blood of maids and boys,

mothers and children who had no sin beyond their steadfastness to the

Truth as they believed it.

"And still He makes no sign," thought Rénèe. "And still He sends

none—angel nor man—to smite and deliver."

When the first days of April came, she saw the Confederates, headed by

Brederode and Count Louis, go past the Orange palace on their entry into

Brussels; the two leaders halted with the Prince, who was entertaining

them, and Rénèe, leaning from the window, heard Brederode say as he

crossed the courtyard, "Eh, well, here I am, and perhaps I shall depart

in another manner."

The splendour of the Nassau mansion was no longer what it had been,

though it was still magnificent. Richly appointed tables no longer stood

ready for all comers at all hours of the day and night; the great number

of servants was reduced; there were fewer balls, concerts, and feasts;

the Prince bought no more tapestries, pictures, statues, rare books, nor

costly plants; the jewel and the silk merchants no longer waited every

morning in his antechamber, nor were vast sums any longer expended on

hawks and hounds.

But for these two guests a generous welcome was prepared, and William

himself met them on the stairs, kissing each on either cheek.

Rénèe crept back to Anne, who sat among her German women, lamenting,

complaining against her husband, against the Netherlands, against her

own miserable fate.

The child played at her knee, but she regarded it with utter

indifference. Rénèe picked up the little girl and carried her away; the

sound of the Princess's voice travelled across the apartments.

"Am I to be ruined for a parcel of heretics? Curse the day of my birth,

curse my marriage day!"

CHAPTER VII

THE PETITION

The third day of April, which dawned over Brussels fair as refined

silver, found Rénèe at her post, leaning from her narrow window, its

harsh stone frame serving as a sombre setting for her face, so

unconsciously beautiful and so sadly serene.

She saw the Prince ride away with his gentlemen; the long green cloak in

which he was wrapped could not quite conceal the glitter of the Order of

the Golden Fleece flaming on his breast.

Rénèe knew that he was going to attend the Regent in Council, for this

was the day that the Confederates or Covenanters, as they were severally

named, were to present their Petition to Madame Parma; and to-day,

instead of going downstairs to her duties beside Anne, Rénèe put on a

hood and cloak of black cloth over her white linen whimple and her dark

yellow gown, and went from the palace and out through the great gates

into the street.

She allowed herself this much advantage from the secret hold she had

over Anne—this one day's holiday; the night before she had told her

mistress of her intention, and Anne had said nothing.

It was strange to be in the streets after the long confinement in the

palace and the palace gardens; it was strange to be one of the people,

amidst the ordinary life of a great city, after having been so long

merely part of the machinery of a princely establishment.

Rénèe received a sense of energy, of hope, of courage in thus finding

herself free and one of the crowd. She wished she could learn some trade

or art by which she could earn her own living; but she was too old to be

taken as an apprentice, and even were she not, she had not sufficient

money to keep herself while she acquired it, nor one friend or relation

to whom she could appeal to help her.

No, there was no means of life open to Rénèe but the one she was

following, especially in these times of ruin and panic, when so many

people were out of work, and those who had money were clutching it

tight.

But she was not one to be daunted even by hopeless difficulties; she

asked so little of life, cared so little when it ended, that if she had

been considering only herself she would have left Anne's service and

tried to find another great lady to take her, or have gone as a servant

into some Protestant family. But she stayed with Anne because to wait on

his wife, to control her, to soften her furies, to check her excesses,

was the sole poor unknown service she could render the man for whom she

would have gladly done anything.

And now that she knew Anne's sordid and shameful secret, she had a

power, an influence over her such as none other possessed, and could

restrain her and bring her to some reason when all else had failed. The

Prince might entreat his wife to appear on some state occasion, and she

would rudely refuse; but when Rénèe insisted, she would suffer herself

to be attired and go.

So with a sigh Rénèe relinquished her fleeting dreams of freedom and a

sane, wholesome life among her own people.

As she moved further into the city she felt with overmastering pain how

lonely she was, how unutterably lonely; all the companies she

passed—women together, families, men with their wives and

sisters—emphasized the terrible feeling of her loneliness.

If it had not been for Philip and the Holy Inquisition, her life would

not have been broken, her heart seared; she would have been as one of

these; she would have had parents, money, position, friends, probably a

lover—in a word, happiness.

Then she remembered that she was only one of thousands left

desolate—perhaps more desolate than she was; fifty thousand, she had

heard, had died under the Inquisition and the Edicts, and how many

aching, maddened hearts had each of these deaths left behind? Rénèe felt

rebuked in her complaint of her loneliness; she shuddered as she went

down the hill to the church of Ste Gudule—shuddered though the spring

breezes were soft and the spring sun warm.

On the steps of the church she paused and looked down at the city lying

in the hollow of the hills, all the spires and vanes of the Town Hall

and the palace, of the various guilds in the market-place rising

delicate and erect into the pale and pure sky, while on all the

irregular tumbled-looking roofs and gables the sun changed lead to gold

and casement glass to diamonds.

She turned, lifted the heavy curtain at the low door in the greater

door, and entered the church whose twin towers she had watched so

constantly that they had come to mean to her the Papist power which

dominated the land.

She had not been in a Romish church since she was a child and had crept

into the great church of St. Baron at Ghent. She had not meant to enter

this now, but a fascinated sense of horror drew her on—horror because

she could not regard this faith with toleration; it stood to her for an

epitome of idolatry, cruelty, wickedness, oppression, and

uncharitableness.

She was not a Protestant by chance; her whole nature detested the Church

of Rome. She stepped forward into the gloom, pulling her hood further

over her eyes.

At first she could distinguish nothing but the seven thick wax candles

burning on the altar and the red lamps flickering their eternal light

before the shrines.

Then from the mystical shadows began to loom the shapes of pillars,

massive, yet so dimly coloured as to seem impalpable, as if they were

beneath the sea; brocades, marbles, altars set with jasper, silver, and

chrysolite became visible in the side chapels, here and there the rapt

faces of angels showed from some dark painting on the wall, the air was

redolent of the incense, the wax smoke, and the scent of flowers. This

mingled perfume was near as ancient as the church, which had remained

for so long enclosed from the light and air that it seemed as if built

underground.

Such light as there was streamed richly from the coloured glass windows

where saints and bishops blazed together in wheels and panels of glory.

Rénèe fixed her eyes on the High Altar which was flushed with a shadow

like golden-red wine, in the middle of which the flat, gold,

ruby-studded doors of the shrine that held the Eucharist flashed and

shone like the Eye of God itself. Beyond, the pillars and arches of the

Lady Chapel rose up dim, and appearing of a translucent quality in the

shade which here, flushed with the light from gold-coloured windows, was

sea-green and amber behind the crimson of the altar.

Round the huge candlesticks of dark red Florentine copper were alabaster

bowls, almost transparent, veined with violet, which held the first

lilies of the year in sweet clusters—the lilies from wood and field

called Easter lilies from the time of their coming.

The church was empty save for here and there the dark bent figure of a

peasant before some side altar.

Rénèe could not bring herself to bend the knee before the idols her

father had perished to disown, and, with a trembling in her limbs as if

some physical power had seized her and a choking in her throat as if the

sweet thick air was poisonous, she turned and fled quickly into the pale

sunshine without.

The excited people were already beginning to gather to watch the passing

of the petitioners on their way to the palace.

Rénèe did not know which way the procession was to pass, and she was

largely ignorant of the city, but she followed the direction in which

the great mass of the crowd was going.

She particularly noticed this crowd and its demeanour, the soberness,

the earnestness, the silence of these people.

None of them seemed to be treating the occasion as a festival or as a

holiday, if they showed a certain satisfaction it was grave and serious;

very few of them were armed, and all of them were restrained in gestures

and speech.

There were some gentry, on foot and on horse, but the great number were

burghers, traders, and apprentices belonging to the seven great guilds

of Brussels.

Rénèe following in the wake of this crowd climbed the hill again, left

the towers of Ste Gudule below, and came out on the heights above the

town where stood the parks and mansions of the great nobles, and the

Brabant palace which was the residence of the Regent.

As she passed the palace Rénèe caught sight of the spare figure and

excited face of the skryer Duprès, as he pushed his way through the

crowd.

Rénèe was disgusted to think the man was still in Brussels; she had

hoped that he would find it wise to leave the Netherlands, or at least

the town; but probably he had given up his dangerous occupation of

rhetoric player and, with the spoils of the Nassau mansion, had

established himself as a respectable Papist.

Now a great movement shook the crowd, a low hum rose from the throats of

the men, and the women began to tiptoe excitedly and to lift their

little children to their shoulders.

Rénèe was at the back and could see nothing, but two men who had a point

of vantage on the steps of a mansion near by gravely helped her up

beside them.

One asked her if she was a Fleming?

"My father was hanged for a heretic in Ghent," answered Rénèe, "and I am

in the service of the Prince of Orange."

It gave her pleasure to mention the Prince and not his wife; and it was

truly _his_ service in which she was.

The two men took off their caps to her.

"The Spaniards will not hang many more Netherlanders," one remarked; and

they supported Rénèe against the balustrade of the steps so that she

could see over the heads of the closely packed people.

Suddenly the humming changed into a clapping of hands and a deep

shouting that made Rénèe's blood tingle with excitement and deep

emotion; she pushed back the hood from her flushed face and gazed at the

procession which now appeared marching up the street and turning in at

the splendid gates of the palace.

All were on foot and unarmed, all were nobles, many of the highest rank,

and all were young and gorgeously attired, so that it was a magnificent

procession, such as all the great festivals of Brussels had not seen

before, which now wound under the portals of the Brabant palace.

"He who goes first," said the man next to Rénèe, "is Philip de

Billeuel."

"And some think it an ill augury that he should be lame," remarked the

other doubtfully.

Rénèe had indeed remarked that the young nobleman who led the

petitioners halted unmistakably.

"And he in the black and blue," added her informant, straining his voice

to make it heard above the clapping and the shouting—"with the look of

fire, who is answering the cries of the people—is Nicolas de Hammes whom

they call Golden Fleece, and he behind in the sable cloak is Ste

Aldegonde——"

Rénèe had already recognized these two as well as several others whom

she had seen at the Nassau palace, and as the rich and brilliant company

of gentlemen passed before her, there were several of the eager, proud,

young faces she knew as related to some of the noblest families of the

land.

The enthusiasm of the crowd became almost piteous in its eager gratitude

to these nobles who were making themselves the champions of the people

and protesting so openly and in such an imposing fashion against the

loathed Spaniards and the loathed Inquisition.

Encouraging shouts, adjurations, blessings, and thanks were showered on

the petitioners, and some of the more reckless, as Golden Fleece and Ste

Aldegonde, replied by shouting curses on the Inquisition and the

Cardinalists. Rénèe recognized Count Culemburg and Count van der Berg,

the Prince of Orange's brother-in-law, glittering in French brocades and

Genoese velvet and great chains about their necks and round their hats.

Finally, closing the procession, came the two leaders—Henry Brederode

and Louis of Nassau.

They walked alone, arm in arm, the last of all, and for them the

affectionate greetings of the crowd arose to a frenzy.

Count Brederode looked fitted to be the hero of such a moment: his tall

and noble figure, his military carriage, his handsome face flushed with

pleasure and triumph, his eyes sparkling with a reckless fire, the full

locks of blond hair streaming on to his falling ruff, gave him the

kingly presence of a leader of men.

He wore a suit of rose cloth of silver, and a great mantle of

peacock-coloured velvet; in his high black hat was a long heron's

feather clasped by a diamond.

Beside his grandeur Louis of Nassau looked very slight and youthful; he

was more soberly dressed in dark blood red, with a great ruff of many

points rising up above his face.

And whereas Brederode appeared mightily at his ease and greatly pleased

with his task and his reception, Louis held himself more modestly and

looked grave and even anxious; but there was about him a gallantry

almost moving.

And so the last of them went into the palace, and the crowd broke up and

stayed about in groups, talking eagerly together in excited voices while

they waited for the reappearance of the petitioners.

Rénèe wandered into a side street and entered a baker's shop which was

filled with tired women and children.

The waiting-woman bought bread and cake and a kind of sweetmeat, and

while she ate she listened to the conversation that flowed round her

like many currents of the one river.

For the theme was always the same: the executions, the torturings, the

ruin falling on trade and work.

And all spoke soberly without laughter or jest, and many had eyes

swollen and frayed from weeping.

One only was unconcerned: a small child who stood in a world of his own,

oblivious to the talk of death and ruin crossing above his head, while

his eyes were fixed with an eager smiling look on the piece of sweetmeat

Rénèe held.

She found something marvellous and yet terrible in this utter absorption

of the child in his own thoughts, in his calm, and his pleasure.

She put the sweet into his hand and left the shop.

For more than an hour she wandered about the streets, and, when she made

her way back to the Brabant palace, the petitioners were beginning to

leave.

Reports of their audience, that had been passed from soldiers and

servants within the palace to those without, were already rife among the

crowd and eagerly repeated from one to the other.

The Regent had wept when Brederode had made his speech, the tears had

run down her face while the famous Compromise was read, and when all the

members of the deputation had come forward, one by one, to make the

"caroale" before the Duchess as a mark of respect, and she had thus had

time to severally note their appointments, their importance, and their

number, her agitation had increased so that Barlaymont had tried to

reassure her: "What, Madame," he had said, "do you fear these beggars,

who do not know enough to manage their own estates and then must needs

prate of state affairs? Had I my way they should leave the palace

quicker than they came!" This the Cardinalist was reported to have

uttered loudly enough to reach the ears of some of the gentlemen, who

repeated it among themselves with wrath and indignation.

Rénèe waited until the Prince came from the palace; he rode out of the

gates with Egmont, looking unhappy and troubled, at his side. The two

grandees were greeted less warmly than the confederates. As neither had

openly sided with the people, and as Egmont, at least, was a strict

Catholic and something of a persecutor, they were not so popular as they

had been in the days when they caused the downfall of Cardinal

Granvelle.

Rénèe stood in the roadway, where the passing of the Prince cast dust on

her gown; she had one glimpse of his dark ardent face and he was gone.

Suddenly she felt very tired; the strangeness, the unnaturalness of her

life, without home or ties, without friends or interests or diversions,

and always supervised by a dull and ceaseless tyranny, weighed on her

with the horror of tragedy. And this deep concealed passion, this strong

faith, this devotion that lit this dreary life like a beacon on a desert

was not in the nature of comfort, nay, rather it was a light that lit up

dullness, dreariness, and barrenness which darkness would have

mercifully concealed.

Had not all the suppressed feeling in her breast turned to this worship,

she might have been happier, for she would not have known so keenly what

she lacked; as it was she knew not even the peace of apathy.

Clouds were gathering over the April sky as she returned to the palace;

every one talked of the Petition and what success it was likely to have;

the streets were all filled with murmurs of hope, of doubt, of

eagerness, and of expectation.

CHAPTER VIII

THE BANQUET

Twice more in the ensuing days did Brederode and his following present

themselves at the Brabant palace, the first time to receive the Petition

which was returned to them with Margaret's answer.

Madame Parma, as usual, referred everything to the King; the Petition

should be forwarded to His Majesty, from whose well-known clemency there

was everything to be hoped.

As for herself, she had no authority to suspend the Inquisition nor the

Edicts, but she would give orders to the Inquisitors to behave with

discretion; meanwhile she adjured the petitioners to act as men loyal to

King and Church.

Brederode's third audience was for the purpose of answering this not

very satisfactory concession; he urged the Regent to cease all religious

persecution until the decision of the King arrived, to which Her

Highness replied she could not go beyond her former answer, but that

Count Hoogstraaten should show them the instructions to the Inquisitors,

commanding them to moderation.

There was nothing more to be obtained from Madame Parma, and the

confederates separated with such hopes as they were able to cherish, and

such expectations of the good results of Margaret's letter to the King

as their knowledge of Philip allowed them to entertain.

The evening of the day that Brederode had been for the last time to the

Brabant palace, the Prince of Orange was dining with Mansfeld, who was

sick with an inflamed eye; his companions were Egmont and Hoorne, and

the four nobles discussed with gloom and foreboding the situation which

Brederode and his fellow-petitioners had taken with such reckless

gaiety.

Egmont was the most uneasy of all; the memory of his late visit to Spain

and how deftly Philip had twisted him to his will still rankled in his

mind. He had seen that the King had not kept one of the lavish promises

he had then made, yet the Count, though conscious of being fooled (he

had utterly refused to go again to Madrid), yet could not wholly

disbelieve in Philip nor bring himself to any action that might seem

disloyal to His Majesty.

He had refused to associate himself in any way with Brederode's party,

and he was one of the few Stadtholders who obeyed Philip by using his

civil authority to enforce the decrees of the Inquisition.

Yet he saw as well as any man the utter ruin to which Philip's policy

was bringing the Netherlands; his Brussels palace was full of refugee

heretics, and he was still regarded by the people as their hero and

their possible champion.

He even ventured now to predict possible concession as the result of the

forwarding of the Request or Petition to Philip.

William glanced at him with smiling eyes in a manner that brought the

blood to Egmont's cheek.

"You speak against your own wit," remarked the Prince quietly. "You

_know_ that the King will not be moved from his purpose by the Petition

of these young men, led by such as Brederode."

"It were better for all," interposed Count Hoorne sourly, "if Brederode

had kept out of politics."

"Politics?" smiled William. "Poor Brederode knows little of politics!

But he is brave and loyal, Count; I can conceive good uses for

Brederode."

"His present uses," said Egmont bitterly, "seem to be to embroil us all.

You know of this banquet to-night?"

"Yes," answered Mansfeld bitterly. "My son is there—I would to God he

were elsewhere."

"There will be much treason talked," said Hoorne. "And Brederode in wine

is no better than a madman."

William glanced at the clock in the corner.

"We are almost due at the council chamber," he said, rising.

"You work late," remarked Mansfeld.

"And to little purpose," said Hoorne, gloomily pulling at his black

beard. "Eh, Prince?"

"To little purpose, truly," replied William gravely. "The affairs of the

Netherlands are settled in Philip's Cabinet in Madrid, not in the

council chamber at Brussels."

He smiled to himself thoughtfully and picked up his long velvet mantle

from one of the brocade chairs.

"We will go round by the horse market," he added, "and see how this

banquet progresses."

"Nay, I beseech you," said Mansfeld eagerly. "Keep away from all such

dangerous sport!"

"Not sport nor pleasure," replied the Prince, "but Hoogstraaten is there

and I would bring him away. And if the company is riotous I will

disperse them," he added, with a sure and entirely unconscious certainty

of power.

Mansfeld shrugged his shoulders; his inflamed and bandaged eye irritated

him, and he was deeply vexed at his son's connexion with the

confederates.

"This is an affair well enough for boys," he returned peevishly—"boys

and roysterers—but the Regent's councillors had best keep away."

William knew perfectly well what Brederode's banquet was likely to be,

and how it would be regarded by the government; he knew also that

Hoogstraaten had been persuaded to attend against his will, and wished

to save him from too deep an implication in the riots in which the feast

would undoubtedly end; nor was William without some kindly feeling for

Brederode and a desire to check him in his dangerous recklessness.

Hoorne disliked Brederode, but he would gladly have done a service to

the gallant Hoogstraaten, and Egmont was always eager to curb any

display against the Government, so the three nobles, on taking leave of

Mansfeld, set out towards the Culemburg palace where Brederode held his

dangerous feast.

They had no sooner dismounted and crossed the courtyard of the mansion

than the tumultuous uproar that reached their ears more than justified

their apprehensions.

The banquet of the confederates had indeed degenerated into a riot and

an orgy.

An argument had been raised as to what name the party, now so loosely

designated, was to be called, and at the height of the discussion

Brederode had sprung to his feet and related what Barlaymont had said

when they first came into the presence of Madame Parma—

"'What, is Your Highness afraid of these beggars! People of little power

who cannot manage their own estates!'"

When this sarcasm of one of their greatest enemies was repeated to them,

the company, inflamed with wine, were strung up to a fever pitch of fury

at the insult which had been offered them—all gentlemen of rank and

noble blood.

Brederode seized the moment; taking a leathern wallet and a wooden bowl

from one of his pages, he held them aloft over the glittering feast.

"Very well!" he cried. "They call us beggars! We will make them fear

that word! We will contend against the Inquisition, and be loyal to the

King until we are beggars indeed!"

He then filled the bowl with wine and drained it to the health of the

beggars.

The party name was received with mad enthusiasm; it took the humour of

all present; amid yells of approval and shouts of applause the wooden

bowl was handed from one to another and each drank to the new party

name. When the circuit of the table had been completed the bowl and

wallet were fastened to one of the pillars which supported the ceiling,

and the rites by which the petitioners received their new name were

concluded by each member of the company hurling some salt and bread into

his goblet, and repeating two lines of doggerel which some one's heated

wits had instantly produced——

"Par le sel, par le pain, par le besache,

Les gueulx ne changeront quoy qu'on se fache!"

This ceremony was at the height of unrestrained and reckless merriment,

furious and unlimited enthusiasm, when the three nobles entered the

banqueting hall.

It was a wild and gorgeous sight on which they looked—a sight all of

them would rather not have beheld.

It was the chamber in which Francis Junius had preached to a group of

young Protestant nobles on Alexander of Parma's wedding day, but it was

more suited to the present scene of unlicensed revelry than it had been

to that sincere and ardent gathering.

The ceiling and the upper portion of the walls had been painted by an

Italian artist in the precise and airy style of decoration which adorned

the Roman palaces—delicate scroll-work, arabesques, birds and animals

interwoven wonderfully on a ground of deep blue and burnished gold.

The lower part of the walls were hung with tapestry of Arras on brass

rods, each panel representing a scene in the life of Jason, and between

the tapestries were pillars with candle sconces in heavy copper and

brass, fashioned as flowers and figures, which lit the vast apartment

that was almost entirely occupied by an immense table at which three

hundred gentlemen were seated.

At either end of the room, each side of the folding-doors, stood

buffets, still loaded with fruit, sweets, and wines, and attended by

pages; round the wall, at intervals, stood the servants in groups of

twos and threes.

The table itself was lit by a huge lamp of rock crystal supported by

four flying harpies, half gold, and half silver, with wings and tails

shining in red enamel. This magnificent light illuminated the whole

table and left in shadow only the extreme centre, where stood a gorgeous

piece of confectionery, the master-effort of Count Culemburg's cook,

representing the confederacy entering the gates of the Brabant palace,

the little figures—each of which was a portrait—being moulded out of

sugar, cunningly coloured and adorned with cuttings of candied fruits.

This, on the huge raised comport of embossed gold, was untouched, but

for the rest the table was in the wildest disorder.

Almost every thread of the cloth of Brussel's lace was stained with

wine; gold goblets, crystal beakers, dishes of fruit, of cakes, of

sweetmeats were scattered right and left; at one end two young men were

dancing on the table, clinging to each other, while their unsteady feet

knocked over glasses and plates; several had mounted on the backs of

their chairs, and sat with their feet on the table edge, while they

shouted at the top of their voices; others, their caps turned inside out

and their doublets torn open, danced about the room vowing eternal

friendship to each other and eternal fidelity to the party; a few

retained their places at the table and, with beakers at their lips,

pledged again and again the party of "the beggars"; most of them had

baptized a neighbour into the confederacy by pouring wine over his

shoulders and head, so that flushed faces, rich clothes, and tumbled

locks alike dripped red.

The whole scene seemed coloured red—the bright red of wine sparkling

over gold.

At the head of the table sat Count Brederode; his doublet of scarlet

velvet was covered with a network of fine gold strung with pearls; every

thread of his ruff was gold, it came up to his ears and was scattered

with brilliants; from his shoulders hung a short mantle of silver cloth

lined with white fur; he leant his elbows on the table and clasped

between his jewelled hands a gold goblet carved with grapes and vine

leaves. As he emptied it, the page at his elbow refilled it; the wine

splashed down his ruff, his doublet, and his sleeves; he laughed long

and merrily, and now and then shouted at the top of his powerful voice—

"Par le sel, par le pain, par le besache,

Les gueulx ne changeront, quoy qu'on se fache!

Vivent le roi et les gueulx! vivent les gueulx!"

Such was the scene that met the eyes of William and his companions as

they entered the Culemburg banqueting hall.

The Prince said nothing, but glanced to where Hoogstraaten sat,

half-vexed, half-amused, near his host, whom he was endeavouring to

restrain; Egmont uttered an exclamation of annoyance and dismay; Hoorne

frowned bitterly, and darted a look of contempt from under his heavy

brows at the laughing Count Brederode.

As soon as the three great nobles, the most powerful grandees in the

Kingdom, were recognized, they were hailed with shouts of welcome and

surrounded by a crowd of intoxicated youngsters, who took their presence

as a good augury for the newly named party.

"No, no," said the Prince, putting aside the beakers that were being

forced upon him. "I have come but for the length of a _miserere_—we are

here for the Seigneur Hoogstraaten."

That nobleman rose, glad of an excuse to retire, and Brederode, turning,

saw the three new-comers.

"Ah, Highness!" he cried, staggering to his feet. "Will you not come and

drink the health of the beggars? Be seated—here on my right"—then

looking at Hoorne with whom he had recently quarrelled, he added, "and

the Admiral also! I did not look to see your sober face at any feast of

mine, Count Hoorne!"

At this taunt the Admiral, who had been glancing at the saturnalia with

genuine disgust and sincere vexation, flushed to his bald head, and

fixed his dark eyes menacingly on the speaker.

"I have come to save a better man than you, Count Brederode," he

answered, "from the consequences of your folly. Folly? Is it not more

than folly—is it not near madness and treason?"

The dark blue eyes of Brederode blazed.

"Think you your caution will save you, Count Hoorne? I tell you Philip

will spare you as little as he will spare any man in this room, and

Granvelle holds you as damned as any heretic who ever ate a sausage on a

Good Friday!"

The sinister truth of these rude words made Egmont blench, but the

Admiral received them with gloomy scorn; he felt quite secure in his own

loyalty.

William, assailed by cries of "Long live the beggars!" the meaning of

which was utterly unknown to him, made his way through the revellers to

where Brederode stood.

The sight of the well-known slender figure, the calm earnest face, the

air of authority, the immense attraction and power that the Prince

possessed, sobered the reckless young nobles, the two dancing on the

table were pulled down, those seated were dragged to their feet, the

uproarious shouting was partly hushed.

"By Heaven this goes too far, Count!" said William, in a low voice. "The

reckless things you have said to-night you will forget to-morrow when

you have slept off your wine, but there are those who will not forget."

"Spies!" muttered Brederode. "Spies!"

"Among these stupid seeming lackeys, maybe," replied the Prince drily.

"Why, man, you are not a fool; you know the Escorial has spies

everywhere."

"I care not," said Brederode, with a certain grandeur in his

recklessness; "why should we cringe to Spain's certain wrath? Nothing

could bring us into favour at Madrid; let us then defy monk and Spaniard

and prove we can defend our own!"

"Defiance of Spain given in this manner will be short-lived," answered

the Prince. "Do you think you serve the Netherlands this way? So you

only gain laughter."

"Let them laugh," returned the Count; "when the time comes they shall

see I can fight as well as I can feast."

And he was seizing his replenished bowl, with the toast, "Damnation to

the Inquisition and the Spaniards," forming on his lips, when William

sternly took the wine from him and turned it on the floor, sending the

beaker after it on to the Persian rug.

"End this, Brederode," he commanded, and his eyes shone dark with anger.

"This is not a pot-house—there are some high interests in our several

keepings—for the sake of these reckless boys you have brought here

to-night, stop before you endanger all beyond help. Oh, Brederode," he

added, with a sudden smile, "go to bed—for you are very drunk."

Brederode stared at him, suddenly laughed, then sat down silently, his

glittering figure drooping back in the wide-armed chair.

Egmont and Hoogstraaten endeavoured to prevail on the rest of the

company to disperse; intoxicated and excited as most of these were, they

yet retained sufficient wit to rouse to a sense of their own

foolishness; to more than one the red wine running over floor and table

and staining each others' faces and garments became a prediction of the

red blood that might be flowing soon.

They well knew that Philip was as prodigal of blood as Netherland nobles

of their wine; the sobriety and slight awe that had come over the

gathering with the entry and remonstrances of the three was heightened

by one of those trivial incidents that highly affect overwrought minds.

The sugar foundation of the elaborate and costly sweetmeat in the centre

of the table suddenly gave way; the heat had melted it unperceived, and

as its support flowed in sickly thick streams over the golden comport

and the stained cloth, the little figures of the confederates fell here

and there, mere crushed lumps of sweet, and nothing remained of the

gorgeous piece of triumphal confectionery but a sticky discoloured mess.

"Men of sugar, men of sugar," muttered the Admiral. "So shall this

company melt away."

The ugly omen was noticed by several; in twos and threes they smoothed

their disordered habits and departed.

Only Brederode remained where he was, wrapt in a sudden melancholy.

"I shall die a poor soldier at the feet of Count Louis," he kept

muttering; then: "Capon and sausage on Friday! Who says I did eat it

lies twenty feet down in his throat!"

Seeing the company was now dispersed, the three nobles took their leave,

Hoogstraaten accompanying them.

They came out into the calm April night, which was moonless and full of

sweetness; the stars lay entangled in little wisps of clouds, an

under-breeze came fragrantly from the spring fields of Brabant.

William glanced back at the brilliantly lit mansion behind them.

"There is a silly short prologue to a long dull tragedy!" he remarked.

"Tragedy!" echoed Lamoral Egmont angrily. "You speak always as if we

were on disaster, Prince."

William made no answer; they turned their horses' heads towards the

Brabant palace, where Margaret, frightened and angry, debated matters of

heaven and earth with Vigilius and Barlaymont.

CHAPTER IX

MONTIGNY'S WIFE

Count Hoogstraaten and the Baron Montigny were playing tennis in the

pleasant courts of the Prince's palace gardens.

May was now fully in bloom, and at midday the sun was warm; the trees,

newly covered with glossy leaves, cast a pleasant shade over the smooth

lawns.

At the foot of one, a splendid beech, Montigny's wife sat on silk

cushions and rugs, and resting her chin in her hand and her elbow on her

knee, looked, with a certain wistfulness, at the figure of her husband

as he moved lightly to and fro after the ball.

Leaning against the tree was the Prince of Orange, and close by, on a

seat shaded by a high box hedge, sat Anne, attended by Rénèe and the

little German girl.

Already utterly forgetful that she was there to entertain the young

bride, Anne was dozing in the sun, her head falling forward in an ugly

fashion.

The Prince took no notice of her, did not even glance in her direction;

he was talking earnestly with Hélène d'Espinoy, the Baroness Montigny.

This lady, though her marriage festivities had but just concluded, and

she seemed a creature made for joy and carelessness, followed with an

interest almost pathetic the great and terrible events in which her

husband moved.

She was talking now of the field-preachings and camp-meetings which had

spread with irresistible force all over the country—the answer of the

heretics to the decrees of the Council of Trent.

"It is a wonderful thing, is it not, Prince," she said in her soft

voice, that seemed only fitted to sing to a lute, "that people will do

this for their faith? The penalty is death alike to all; yet they go,

men, women, and children—risking death and torture, to stand in the

fields to hear some unfrocked monk preach! Is it the Devil makes them so

strong?"

"You might rather call it God," said William, looking down at her.

She lifted her face now—a delicate, rather sad face, with beautiful

eyes. She fingered her ruff and eased it where it pressed against her

cheek, and sighed.

"You seem dismayed, Madame," said the Prince gently.

"Yes," she answered at once. "Because my lord goes to Spain."

"He has resolved on that, then, finally?" asked William quickly.

"Yes—he and Marquis Berghen go this month." She tried to smile. "Is it

not hard? I have had him so short a time."

"He might refuse to go," answered the Prince, with some eagerness.

"He is reluctant, but he has accepted," said the lady, and again her

glance turned towards the tennis court. "But I," she added suddenly, "I

dread that he should go to Madrid!"

"You must not fancy disaster, Madame," returned William.

"I am not foolish," she quickly defended herself. "But I know he has

offended the King by refusing to enforce the Inquisition in his

provinces——"

"Ah, as to that, console yourself," said the Prince. "Philip has a long

arm—your husband will be as safe in Madrid as his brother is here,

Madame."

"You mean neither are safe?" she asked swiftly. "But there is special

danger in Spain—ah, it is to walk into the lion's mouth for a

Netherlander to go to Madrid! Count Egmont will not go again."

"That will not save him if he has incurred Spanish wrath," remarked

William, with a sigh.

Montigny's wife rose with an agitated movement.

"What will happen?" she asked. "_He_ will tell me nothing—Your Highness

will be kinder, and tell me what will happen?"

She stood like a child before him, with her childish request on her lips

and her little hands clasped on her white silk bodice.

"If I could tell!" smiled the Prince. "All is a confusion: the Regent is

bewildered; she has no power to enforce her authority—the King is

silent."

He did not add that he knew what was behind the King's silence: that

Philip was slowly and elaborately preparing the most exact and

far-reaching punishment for those who had opposed his policy in the

Netherlands, and that the Duke of Alva, with an army at his back, was

soon to take the place of the overwhelmed and uneasy Margaret.

To change the lady's thoughts, he reverted again to the

field-preachings, to the courage of these men, who with their swords at

their side went out to hear a man with a price on his head preach Jesus

Christ.

Sometimes they met in barns or houses, but more often in the open

fields, outside the city walls, where preaching was forbidden.

They went in hundreds, in thousands, so that sometimes the city would be

empty and the hymns of Clement Marot would rise as fearlessly as if

there was no Inquisition waiting for them with faggot and chain, sword

and axe.

William spoke warmly and with a lively sympathy.

"The mind and the soul are not in the keeping of king nor priest—no man

has a lordship over another man's conscience," he said. "All history has

proved that."

Hélène d'Espinoy had never thought of this. She was sorry for all these

people who had to die, so sorry she did not care to dwell on the

thought, but questions of ethics were unknown to her; she only wanted

peace, and her own happiness secure in a happy world.

She looked at the garden, so fresh and lovely; at the sky, so serene and

soft; at the two young nobles laughing over their game; at her own

luxurious apparel—and she wished, in a sad and simple way, that these

things could endure and that nothing would ever come to disturb them.

"Ah, Seigneur," she said, "why cannot all men believe in the one true

God?"

"Each man's God is one and true to him, Madame. The weaver of Tournay

burnt to death over a slow fire for casting the wafer out of the

priest's hand found his God as true as Philip finds his—for to the last

he called on Him and even smiled. I wonder," added the Prince

thoughtfully, "if Philip in torment would find support in his faith!"

"It is all terrible," answered Hélène d'Espinoy in a shaken voice, "and

these people have power—they will fight, they will resist. It will not

be so easy to subdue them."

"Easy enough for Alva," thought William. "The Duchess is only helpless

because she is without money and without men."

"Easy to subdue," he repeated aloud; and went on to tell Madame Montigny

of the camp-meetings at Tournay, where the Reformers were six to one

against the Catholics, and when the Regent sent orders to the trained

bands to arrest the worshippers, it was found that all of them—the

crossbowmen of St. Maurice, the archers of St. Sebastian, the

sword-players of St. Christopher—were themselves heretics, who eagerly

attended the preaching of Ambrose Wille, the famous disciple of John

Calvin, and new come from Geneva.

"Since they are so much in earnest, these people," said Montigny's wife,

"might not His Majesty allow them their faith and their preaching?"

"His Majesty will no more ever allow the preaching than the people will

ever give it up; and there is the great tragedy—these few poor people

and the greatest king in the world!"

Montigny now left the tennis court and came towards the two under the

shadow of the beech tree.

His face, which had the dark colouring, the look of reserve and strength

of his brother, Count Hoorne, but none of that nobleman's joyless

gravity, flushed with a look of love as he glanced at his wife. It was

to the Prince he spoke.

"Tennis is a childish sport for these open days of spring—we should be

trying hound and falcons in the open campaign."

He put his arm lovingly round the Prince's shoulder and drew him aside.

Hoogstraaten, the intimate friend of both, followed them.

Hélène d'Espinoy glanced round for the Princess, and Rénèe, with the

watchfulness of one in charge of a puppet whose strings must be pulled

at a given signal, touched her mistress on the shoulder and roused her

attention.

As soon as the three young men were out of hearing of the women,

Montigny left talk of hounds and falcons to speak at once of the state

of things in his Stadtholdership and of the immense increase of the

daring and power of the heretics. It was indeed a subject which no man,

from the humblest to the highest, could long keep from his mind and

lips.

Montigny was inclined to think that the Netherlanders had successfully

asserted themselves; they had proved that they were too numerous to be

stopped by force from exercising what religion they chose, and too

courageous to be frightened by threats and punishment into abandoning

their faith, and persecution for the moment had slackened. Brederode's

party, "the beggars," were strong and much to the front; their Petition

or Request was now before Philip. That monarch was silent—might he not

be considering it reasonably?

Thus Montigny, who shared the stubborn loyalty of his brother Hoorne and

the credulous optimism of Lamoral Egmont.

William saw the other side of the picture: he knew that the famous

Petition and the long deliberations which had followed had only resulted

in the "moderation" decree, which the people instantly named

"murderation," since the only concession it made was to sometimes

substitute hanging for a more horrible means of death; and this was

without Philip's sanction, and only flung as a sop to the people by

Margaret while she waited for her brother's instructions.

The Prince saw too that the persecutions had only slackened because the

Regent found herself without men or money, and that, whenever possible,

the heretic preachers were hunted down like wild beasts. Brederode might

rejoice, Montigny might be hopeful, but William of Orange saw that the

present lull was but the prelude to a more awful vengeance on those who

disobeyed Philip than any that had yet befallen.

He knew that the Regent's attitude of moderation, her affected kindness

to the nobles, her loud-voiced desire for concord and peace, was but a

farce, and that probably in her secret letters she was denouncing all of

them to Philip.

These things William did not say to Montigny, he had warned him so

often; but he suddenly stopped in the middle of the flower garden and

said earnestly—

"Do not go to Spain—it is so useless."

"You too?" cried Montigny. "All warn me—but how refuse? I have a

conscience clear of disloyalty."

"That will not help you in the Escorial," said William, with some

impatience.

"I have not offended His Majesty," persisted the Stadtholder of Tournay

and Tournaisis.

"Ah, Baron!" cried Hoogstraaten, "you offended all Spain when you

refused to burn the poor heretics!"

"I detest and spurn the Inquisition," answered Montigny warmly. "I go to

Madrid to protest against it—but never, Count, have I done anything to

anger Church or King."

"That is known only to Philip and to Granvelle!" said William, looking

down at the bed of flowers at his feet. "Do not go—it is so useless!"

"Count Egmont failed," urged Hoogstraaten.

"I shall not be so easily caressed," returned Montigny.

"The worse for you," answered the Prince. "Those the Spanish cannot fool

they will win another way. And your going is for nothing. If Philip will

pay no heed to what the Regent writes, will he pay heed to what you and

Berghen say? Did he pay heed to you before? Does he heed any argument?"

"I am not hopeful," admitted Montigny, with a slight sadness in his

voice. "But I have been chosen, and I cannot, without disloyalty,

refuse."

The Prince still stood looking down at the flowers which were gently

waving their soft heavy heads together.

"Do not go," he said for the third time. "Let another man take this

mission. You are young, you are just wed——"

"Give me words of good omen!" cried Montigny, with a laugh and a frown.

"Good omen!" said William firmly. "I find no words of good omen in my

heart. Yet"—he sought for the same consolation which he had given Hélène

d'Espinoy—"it is true that Philip can reach one here as easily as in

Madrid——"

They turned now towards the house, to which the women had already gone;

and presently the Montignys took their leave, he being due at his last

audience with the Regent.

Hoogstraaten lingered a little after him to question the Prince

anxiously.

"He is infatuate—do you think he goes into great danger?"

"I think neither he nor Berghen will return," answered William. "And I

am sorry for that poor child, his wife—sorry beyond words."

He turned away quickly, then turned back again and caught Count

Hoogstraaten warmly by the hand.

"_You_ will not leave me, Antony?"

"I am your poor servant always," replied the Count, with great

affection; "content to be guided by you, and you alone, in all these

troubles."

Then he too left. William watched his little, gallant figure ride away,

and then returned to the antechamber where he had parted from Montigny

and his wife.

There sat Anne in the same listless attitude in which he had left her,

with her elbows propped on a table covered with a rich tapestry and her

face sunk in her small, large-veined hands.

And behind her, as always, was Rénèe, motionless, like her shadow.

It was usual for the Prince to pass his wife in silence when he thus met

her by chance, but now, though with an obvious effort, he came across

the room.

"Madame," he said; then, "Anne."

She looked up; her sallow face flushed and she glanced down again,

spreading out her hands on her skirt.

Rénèe turned to go, but the Prince said, "Stay." He stood looking at his

wife in a silence that held no judgment; he gazed at her rather as if he

sought to throw the protection of tenderness over her sickly

unloveliness, her miserable melancholy. Always in the Prince's attitude

towards his wife there had been this gentleness, which was at once

gallant and touching.

"Anne, I have been wishing to speak to you."

She made no response.

"You always disliked Brussels, did you not, Madame?" he added.

"Why do you ask that?" she demanded, with instant suspicion.

"Because I find it necessary that you should go to my house at Breda,"

he answered kindly. "There is no need for me to keep open this

mansion—few of us live in Brussels now; and when I must come, I can

lodge more simply. At Breda you will be safer than here."

"Ah, this is your economy, your retrenchment!" exclaimed Anne bitterly.

"Do you not think I see how miserable this establishment has become?

Half the servants we had formerly, and those with worn liveries; the

stables half empty, the gardens neglected, and nothing increasing but

debts!"

The Princess exaggerated, but there was truth in what she said—as Rénèe

knew, and as it gave her a strange pang to know.

But William answered lightly—

"I am not as rich a man as I was, Anne, and shall be, likely enough,

poorer before the tale is told. But if I do not spend what I did, it is

not through niggardliness, but because I may need money for other

purposes than that of magnificence. You shall be well enough at Breda."

"Not the Devil and all his legions shall drag me to Breda!" answered

Anne, with great violence.

"Nay, but your husband will," answered William, smiling.

His good-nature, that arose from neither weakness nor indifference, but

from a warm compassion and a deep sympathy for others, never failed him;

not once had Rénèe seen him angry or rude to man or animal, and towards

women he was always softly gentle.

Anne seemed to recognize this quality in him; to realize that all her

fret and fury might be expended in vain against his serenity. She rose

and without another word or look left him.

The Prince turned to Rénèe as she was following her mistress.

"You are very faithful," he said, "and I know that you have no easy

service."

In these words, in his voice and his face, she read the bitterness of

his sorrow and humiliation in his wife. She noticed how tired he looked,

how plain, even careless, was his dress. He was already much changed

from the splendid cavalier who had mounted the stairs to greet his bride

that St. Bartholomew's Day in Leipsic.

"It is my one pleasure to serve," she answered; "there is no other

interest in my life."

He looked curiously at her warm beauty, on which her words seemed such a

strange commentary.

"I may be called to Antwerp, where there is great trouble," he said; "in

my absence speak to the Princess anent Breda—for there she must truly

go, shortly."

He looked away out of the window as if he had already forgotten the

waiting-woman, and Rénèe silently withdrew.

CHAPTER X

ANTWERP

Duprès the skryer did not stay long in Brussels; in a short time he had

spent in lavish living the greater part of the spoils he had gathered

from the Nassau mansion, and, his restless spirit tiring of the Brabant

capital, he began wandering through the troubled land, attaching

himself, where possible, to Brederode and his party of "the beggars,"

who were making a noisy progress over the country.

He was at the great meeting the members of the Confederacy held at St.

Trond, and joined in the noisy demonstrations and riotous feasting that

"the beggars" always indulged in and which made them but a poor reed for

Liberty to lean on. He went with Brederode and Culemburg to Duffel,

where they met Orange and Egmont, who came on behalf of the Regent to

urge the Confederates to preserve the peace of the country instead of

disturbing it, as they did by their riots and armed assemblies.

To which request Brederode replied very briefly that they were there to

protect the poor people who wished to worship in the fields, and that

until a satisfactory answer to the Petition was brought back by the two

envoys, Berghen and Montigny, they would neither disarm nor disperse.

This answer was embodied in a paper which Louis of Nassau and twelve

other young nobles carried to Brussels and put before the Regent

herself.

Their boldness and plain speaking inflamed Margaret to fury.

She retorted by a cold and ambiguous rebuke; and Louis, going further in

his audacity, replied that the Confederacy were not without friends,

either at home or abroad, and that if the Duchess still refused to

convoke the States-General, as she had been often implored to do, and

if, as many imagined, a Spanish invasion was preparing, they, "the

beggars," would know what to do.

Soon after, the gathering at St. Trond broke up and Brederode went to

Antwerp, then perhaps the most troublous spot in the Netherlands.

Duprès accompanied the train of landlopers, gentlemen, refugee

Reformers, and ruined merchants who followed Brederode, and made his

living by selling charms, telling fortunes, and reading the portents the

fearful saw nightly in the sky.

Meghem and Aremberg, the two chief Cardinalists, were already in the

city, and when Brederode arrived the situation became almost impossible.

There were riots daily, and a civil war, between Papists, Calvinists,

Lutherans, and Anabaptists, was considered as inevitable.

Brederode fanned the zeal of the Reformers into fury, while Aremberg and

Meghem supported the loyal, or Spanish, party.

The Senate, the Council, and the Corporation implored the presence of

the Prince of Orange, who was Burgrave of the city; and being further

urged by the Regent, he took up the impossible task of pacification, and

arrived in the city in the midst of a tumultuous scene of welcome,

Brederode and his "beggars" meeting him beyond the walls with deafening

shouts and hurrahs.

William had not placed himself on the side of the people, and he was

acting for the Government; but there was a general confidence in him as

the one man likely, or able, to bring about concord and an understanding

between the King and his subjects.

In Antwerp he at once devoted himself to the task of restoring order,

and spent laborious days and nights consulting with the Senate, the

Council of Ancients, and even the trade guilds and the chambers of

rhetoric, in inducing Brederode to keep quiet, and in reasoning with

Meghem and Aremberg to suspend their bitterness against the Reformers.

He had succeeded in establishing some measure of tranquillity, though no

one was better aware than himself that this tranquillity could not be

long maintained, when he received a summons from the Regent to attend a

meeting of the Knights of the Golden Fleece.

He represented to Margaret the dangerous situation within the city, and

that probably tumults would follow his departure; but she insisted on

his presence in Brussels, and he accordingly prepared to leave Antwerp.

For a day or so all was quiet, but the 18th of August was approaching,

and that date was the feast of the "Ommegang," when the sacred image of

the Virgin was taken from her place in the Cathedral and carried in

triumphant procession through the streets; and the city senate, wards,

and guilds, as those responsible for the safety of the city, as well as

the Burgrave, looked forward with dread to this event, which was sure to

raise the passions of the Reformers to the bitterest pitch.

Others, such as many of the "beggars" and such-like adventurers who

remained in the city, looked forward with pleasure to a riot, in which

there would be a chance to break a few heads and perhaps snatch a little

plunder in the fray.

Among these was Duprès. Nothing delighted him so much as disorder and

confusion; in troubled waters he was always able to swim to the

surface—in calm seas he generally sank.

And to this selfish and mischievous desire for riot and storm was joined

some sincere loathing of the Papists, and some sincere sympathy with the

persecuted Reformers.

Duprès was no theologian, and could not have argued on either side of

the religious question; but during his stay in the Netherlands he had

seen some executions, the horrors of which made his hair rise and his

blood run cold to think of, and which had sent him for ever into the

ranks of Philip's enemies.

On the morning of the 18th, Duprès was early in the streets and had

early taken up his position near the Cathedral.

The temper of the people was silent and dangerous; but the sacred image

was suffered to make her procession in peace, assailed only by a few

coarse jibes and a few cries of "Long live the beggars"; and the day

ended without a tumult, to the great vexation of Duprès. That evening

the Prince left Antwerp. The next morning it was discovered that the

image, instead of being stood, as was usual, in the centre of the

church, had been placed behind iron railings in the choir.

This soon brought together an excited and contemptuous crowd, who passed

in and out of the great church all day, scoffing at the images and the

altars.

Towards evening, a Papist sailor, who indignantly protested against this

irreverent behaviour, provoked a scuffle in which blows were exchanged

and swords drawn.

The priests and custodians of the church managed, however, to clear the

building of the rioters and to close the Cathedral at the usual hour.

Duprès, who had stationed himself in the porch all day to exchange

pleasantries with those of his acquaintances who came and went, had to

return home without having seen the riots he had anticipated; but as he

made his way through the crowded street he met one of Brederode's

followers, a member of the Rhetoric Chamber of the "Marigold," who told

him that the Senate was in consultation with the Margrave of Antwerp,

that they were issuing a notice calling on the citizens to preserve law

and order, and that an express had been sent to Brussels to implore the

Prince of Orange to return.

So it seemed as if those in authority feared worse than the riot which

Duprès had been so disappointed in not beholding. While he was eating

his supper in one of the small sailors' inns on the quay of the Scheldt,

he heard that the Senate was proposing to call to arms the city

companies.

The next morning, the second after the feast of the Ommegang, Duprès

rose in the early midsummer's dawn and proceeded to the Cathedral, which

seemed to be the centre about which all the deep passions of Antwerp

gathered.

As he had protected himself in Brussels by wearing Egmont's famous

livery, so now he donned the popular costume of the "beggars," a plain

suit of grey camlet, a mendicant's hat, a wallet and bowl at his waist,

and one of the "beggar" medals hung round his neck.

Early as it was when he reached the Cathedral square, there were many

already abroad—indeed, some had not been to bed at all. Artisans,

apprentices, tradesmen, clerks, gentlemen, peasantry, women, girls, and

boys stood about in groups, talking earnestly.

They all seemed emboldened by the fact that the Senate had, after all,

done nothing: no proclamation had been issued, no companies called to

arms, and the Cathedral was open as usual.

Duprès, wandering about the square from one knot of people to the other,

was suddenly moved to glance up at the great church. He had often

thought how seldom men lift their eyes from the level of their fellows;

whenever he did so himself, he was conscious, as now, of a certain

shock.

The sky was not yet wholly filled with the sun; the dark purple hue of

the August night still lingered in the west, and the church was in

shadow save for the exquisite spire which soared up erect into the upper

air and light and into the sunbeams now passing over the roofs of the

surrounding houses.

The beautiful tower, rising so high above the city, as delicate as a

flower and as strong as iron, was a noble object that symbolized the

loftiest feeling of which, perhaps, man is capable—the spiritual desire

to reach up to escape the earth.

Duprès, always alive to the grand and the lovely, was moved by the sight

of the marvellous spire, so high above all this passion, and turmoil,

fury and bitterness which beat and lashed below it; he felt a desire to

enter the building, though Romish churches were usually hateful to him,

and he considered them dangerous also for one of his party.

To-day, however, he was emboldened by the general fearlessness of the

crowd and by the number of Reformers, or heretics, abroad.

So he went up to the great bronze doors; before them sat an old woman

selling candles, tapers, and little trivial pictures and images.

To-day a little group was gathered round her, threatening that her trade

was nearly at an end, and hurling at her pungent gibes to which she

replied by fierce and voluble abuse.

Duprès slipped by these, lifted the heavy curtain which hung before the

inner door, and stepped into the church.

At first the immense size, the immense height, bewildered him, he and

the others there seemed like dwarfs lost in an immense twilight forest.

A forest strewn with jewels instead of flowers, and lit with priceless

lamps of gold and silver instead of by sun and stars and moon.

It was indeed the richest church in the Netherlands, and one of the most

sumptuous in Christendom.

Over four centuries of lavish labour, of infinite care, of prodigal

expenditure had gone to the adornment of the building, the entire art

expression of a nation had gone to the decoration, all the finest

inspirations of the best artists, all the most painful and wonderful

work of the best craftsmen were contained within these lofty walls, and

all was sanctioned and hallowed by unending prayers and devotions,

unending tears and penitences, unending humiliations before God.

Like a closed box of precious jewels the magnificent church, containing

the utmost of man's efforts towards beauty and splendour, lay humbly

before the feet of the Lord.

The mystical aspect of this material splendour touched and moved Duprès;

he stood inside the door, looking down the vistas of the five aisles

which were all enveloped in a wine-coloured dusk, broken here and there

by vivid burning beams of light as the sun struck the fiery windows

where the glass blazed orange, purple, violet, and azure with the

uttermost strength of which colour is capable, and which seemed to melt

into infinite grey-green distance behind the altar.

In between the pillars of the naves were gorgeous tombs on which ladies

and cavaliers in alabaster, marble, brass, and painted wood lay with

humble hands pointing upwards, while the glow from the windows fell on

the silk and brocaded banners which hung above them.

The walls were lined with chapels and altars, each sparkling like a

cluster of brilliant gems; among them were conspicuous those of the

twenty-seven city guilds whose banners and escutcheons were fastened

above the entrance grilles.

The vista was closed by a huge sculptured group of white marble which

rose above the High Altar; against the soft mysterious shadows and

flickering lights of the Lady Chapel the colossal figures representing

Christ and the two thieves on the Cross showed with a luminous

glow—half-rose, half-amber—which rendered the outlines impalpable and

the hue like the soft substance of flesh. Behind was dimly visible the

exquisite outline of the tabernacle or repository, the shrine for the

mystical body of Christ, which rose on a single pillar in a series of

beautiful arches and columns till lost in the deep warm shadows of the

roof.

Duprès moved slowly down the centre aisle; the air was heavy with the

drowsy perfumes of myrrh and spikenard, and misty with the perpetual

fumes of incense; the eternal lamps and the perfumed candles which burnt

before shrines and altars gleamed on wrought gold, embossed silver,

splendid paintings, silk tapestries, beaten bronze, carved wood, and all

the marvellous details of the crooked stone of columns and roof and

walls, which were rich with a thousand forms of birds, beasts, flowers,

and creations of pure fantasy.

Duprès began to notice his fellow-companions who were walking in twos

and threes round the aisles; they were mostly of the poorer sort, and

their behaviour was rude and noisy.

A considerable crowd was gathered in the choir, where the sacred image

stared at them from behind her iron bars.

A few priests hurried to and fro; they looked, Duprès thought,

frightened.

He wandered back to the main entrance and stared out.

The sun was now blazing hot and dry on the dusty square, and Duprès

started to see what an enormous number of people had collected. In the

church porch a fight had begun round the ancient pedlar, whose goods had

been flung on the ground, and who was defending herself with sticks and

stones.

Pistol shots were fired, sticks brandished; blood began to flow, and the

temper of the people was fast rising with fury.

Duprès quickly withdrew into the church again, and slipped into the

first chapel inside the door which was empty, and where he could observe

unmolested.

People began to throng into the cathedral; they surged to and fro,

muttering together; the priests had all disappeared.

Duprès was becoming stiff and tired, the marble step of the chapel altar

was hard; the air became stifling hot with the increase of the sun

without. But the skryer seldom went unprovided against bodily needs; he

drew from his wallet a substantial meal of bread and meat and fruit, and

devoured it gravely, blinking up at the mosaic and paintings that lined

the chapel.

The crowd was meanwhile increasing; their shouts and cries, their

threatening looks, promised no peaceful dispersal this time.

Duprès gently closed the gilt gates of the chapel on himself, and

grinned through them at the swarming throngs.

He wondered why the authorities made no effort to check the tumult, and

even as he was scorning them for their cowardice, the great doors of the

church were thrown open, and a pale finely-dressed gentleman entered,

attended by the two burgomasters and all the senators in their robes of

office.

Duprès knew this gentleman for Jan van Immerzeel, Margrave of Antwerp,

who had evidently come in person to endeavour to quell the riot.

Peering through the gilt bars Duprès watched him as he made his way,

with dignity and calm, into the centre of the church, watched his

gestures as he entreated the people to disperse.

"If it was the Prince of Orange now!" smiled Duprès, "but who will stir

for _him_?"

The presence of the Margrave and the senators seemed, however, to have

some effect; many of the people left the church, the others became more

tranquil.

So the day wore on; Duprès, tired of the little chapel but willing to

see events to a finish, yawned and wearied and presently fell asleep on

the red damask cloth which covered the altar steps. He was roused to the

sound of the renewed tumult of a surging crowd refusing to leave,

declaring they would wait for vespers.

The Margrave, speaking from the High Altar, said there would be no

vespers that night; the people then pointed out that the senators should

quit first, leaving them to follow, and the magistrates, weary with

their long vigil, departed, closing after them all the doors save one.

Duprès now crept out of his hiding and stretched his stiff limbs.

He noticed the Margrave was still there, standing by the High Altar—a

small brilliant figure beneath the colossal marble ones of Christ and

the thieves.

He held his cap with a heron's feather in his ungloved hand and kept his

eyes on the crowd. Though the magistrates had some while since left the

building, no one followed them, but a considerable number began to

stream in steadily through the one door left open for egress.

The Margrave, seeing this, sprang quickly on to the altar steps and,

raising his voice, commanded, and then besought, the people to disperse.

No sooner was his voice heard than a party of men, as if in answer to a

given signal, rushed on him and drove him and his attendants towards the

door.

There was but a brief struggle; Duprès saw the nobleman's sword wrenched

from his hand and sent whirling and glittering into dusky air, then he

was forced into the street.

Now with one accord the people ran to all the doors, slipped back the

bolts, and opened them; those waiting without at once thronged into the

church with the force and swiftness of the sea across a broken dike.

Duprès, driven before this resistless throng of humanity, darted into

the choir and clung to the back of the altar; all Antwerp seemed within

the church, and now there was no one to restrain or threaten, to implore

or coerce.

The skryer shivered a little; through the open doors of the Sacristy he

had a glimpse of frightened priests and treasurers with gold and jewels

in their hands; then they cast down the precious objects and fled.

Duprès' blood warmed at the sight of the gold, his eyes glittered.

"Are they going to plunder the church?" he asked himself, and he gazed

round the unspeakable splendour of the building with lustful eyes.

An ominous lull, a deadly silence reigned over the crowd, then with

sudden fierceness there rose the passionate rhythm of a Protestant psalm

breaking harshly on the air that still seemed full of the chantings of

the priests and full of echoes of Latin prayers; the strong Flemish

words, rising from lusty Flemish throats, sprang forth like a

battle-cry, and with a movement that was also like the movement of a

battle, a number of men and women threw themselves on the iron cage

containing the image of the Virgin.

In an incredibly few minutes the figure was dragged out, torn into

shreds, and cast into the air and along the floor.

A deep roar of triumph followed, and Duprès, who could scarcely believe

his eyes, saw that they were beginning to destroy everything in the

cathedral.

A shiver shook him, a sense of dread and terror, as if he knew he was

going to be a witness of something horrible; he cowered down behind the

lofty marble group of the Crucifixion which rose so high above the

heaving, surging throng.

The sound of blows began to mingle with the staves of the psalms, and

the shout of "Long live the beggars!"

The crowd began to tear the tapestries from the walls, to drag down the

pictures and slash them with knives, to knock over the images, and hurl

the statues from the niches.

Duprès drew his breath sharply, his head began to reel at the sight of

this fury of desecration; then a lust, a madness, an exaltation crept

into his veins; he sprang out from his hiding-place and drew the stout

cudgel he kept at his belt.

For once the Reformers were in power, for once there was no creature of

Philip's to protect Philip's God—the Romish Church which had persecuted

the heretics so unfalteringly, so bitterly, so persistently, had now no

champion here to protect her temple.

A woman whose red hair fell on a white neck and rough kerchief leapt up

the altar steps, dashed open the golden doors of the sanctuary with her

fists, dragged out the Eucharist, and flung it down to be trampled under

foot; a number of youths sprang to her side, and in a moment the altar

was cleared of all the costly furniture.

A great and extreme fury now seized the rioters; it was as if they would

revenge on the Papists' church all the blood the Papists had shed, all

the misery they had caused; there were fifty thousand executions in the

Netherlands to be remembered against the Romish Church.

The magistrates came down once more to the cathedral, but on hearing the

terrible, almost inhuman, noise that issued from the building, they fled

back to the town hall without attempting an entrance.

It was now so dark in the church, that the women took the lamps and

candles from the altars and lit the men at their work; the beautiful

column supporting the repository was shattered under a hundred blows; as

arch on arch, pillar on pillar, crashed to the ground they were pounded

with mallets into a thousand pieces.

Seventy chapels were utterly wrecked; there was not a picture nor a

tapestry left in place; with incredible speed and incredible strength

stone, marble, bronze, brass, wood were hurled down, broken, hammered,

defaced.

The figures on the tombs were beaten out of all likeness to humanity,

the banners were torn down and slit to shreds, knives and spears were

driven into the mosaics and wall painting, fragments of alabaster were

hurled through the gorgeous glass window. The inspiration, the labour,

the riches of four hundred years were in a few hours destroyed; the

incalculable wealth, the perfect flower of art which had come to

perfection and could never be again, the industry, the patience of

entire lives, the offerings of generations, the worshipped treasures of

thousands—all these were, in the space of a few hours, reduced to utter

ruin, to broken fragments, and tattered rags by those who saw nothing in

what they destroyed but the symbols of a monstrous tyranny and the

pageantry that disguised all cruelty and wickedness.

The madness got into Duprès' blood; he struck right and left, he

shouted, he sang, he scaled up the pillars to strike down the sculptures

above them; he dashed into the chapels to tear out the relics and leap

on them; he split the painted panels of altar-pieces, and dug out the

inlay and mosaic on the walls.

He was one of the party who burst into the Sacristy, who poured out the

communion wine, and stamped on the wafers, who rubbed their shoes with

the holy oil and hung the priests' priceless copes and chasubles on

their own shoulders.

Then they broke into the treasury; choice illuminated missals and

chorals, robes, staffs, and chalices were hurled right and left, the

elaborate cupboards and beautiful chests being ruthlessly smashed.

The wealth of the church was immense, the hoarded gatherings of

centuries, and, it seemed to Duprès in his madness, as if he had at last

found the Philosopher's Stone: was not everything gold and precious

stones?

For as chest after chest was burst open and the contents scattered on

the floor, the rioters stood ankle-deep in riches.

Crystal goblets, candlesticks, pattens, lamps, chains, reliquaries of

fine gold; ewers, caskets, rings and staffs set with pearl, with

sapphire, with ruby and emerald; vases and dishes of glowing enamel;

statues and images in ivory and silver; rosaries in rare gems; lace

vestures worth as much as gold; stoles, gloves, and staffs all of

incomparable workmanship and all sparkling with jewels; books with gold

covers; censers of pierced gold, lamps of pure gold, candlesticks six

foot high of gold; altar cloths worked in gold thread, in silver thread,

in magnificent silk embroidery, in women's hair—all these were cast out

and defaced, torn and broken, dashed against the walls, and spurned with

the feet.

But nothing was taken; stronger passions then cupidity were governing

men. The ragged Protestants, many of whom had not the price of a supper

in their pockets, scorned to pilfer the priests' treasure; with one

accord they left the desecrated splendour and dashed back to the church.

Duprès would willingly have enriched himself, but dare not so much as

take a single article.

In the cathedral the last outrage was being offered to the Romanist

Faith.

Round the High Altar, now bare and broken, stood a circle of women

holding aloft the flaring, smoking, perfumed holy candles to light a

group of men who, by means of ropes and axes, were dragging the great

marble Christ from His position.

St. John, the Maries, and St. Joseph had been already hurled to the

ground, where they lay shattered on the marble pavement, and soon the

colossal cross shivered and swayed against the background of murky

shadows, fell forward within the ropes, and pitched on to the altar

steps.

A dozen furious hammers soon dashed man and cross to pieces.

There was now nothing left standing in the church but the two huge

figures of the malefactors hanging on their crosses.

Awful and ghostly they looked with that blank space between them, behind

them darkness stained with the red candlelight, around them ruin, and

above them the mysterious dark loftiness of the mighty roof.

With bitter irony the heretics left the two thieves in their places,

then, having completely devastated and destroyed everything within the

cathedral, they swept out into the summer darkness.

The night was yet young, and there were thirty more churches in Antwerp;

triumphantly singing a hymn of praise they dashed to the nearest, from

which the trembling priests had already fled.

As Duprès left the church, overcome by irresistible temptation, he

snatched up a gold vessel from the floor.

Before he could conceal the treasure a man near him saw it and smote it

out of his hand, at the same time striking the skryer a blow that made

him stagger.

"No thieves in this company!" he shouted; "we are not thieves but

avengers!"

CHAPTER XI

THE PRINCE RESIGNS

Ever since he had, on the fall of Cardinal Granvelle, risen to

prominence in the governing of the Netherlands, William of Orange had

endeavoured to steer between party and party, to behave with moderation

and temperance, to extend one hand to the Catholics and one to the

Reformers and lead both to concord.

He had never associated himself with the violent party of 'Beggars'

which Brederode had formed, and to which Count Louis and Ste Aldegonde

belonged; at the same time he had resolutely refused to lend his civil

authority to enforce religious persecution, and had protested again and

again in Council, and in open letter, against the establishment of the

Inquisition and the overthrow of the ancient laws of the Netherlands.

This steadfast and just attitude had given him a power during the

troubles which followed the enforcement of the Edicts of the Council of

Trent which not one of his colleagues possessed; the people had looked

to him as a possible champion, the Regent had thrust on him all the most

arduous tasks, and all had regarded him as the only man able (if any man

were able) to bring about a settlement between Philip and his subjects.

And in this high, arduous, and delicate position the Prince laboured

sincerely, wisely, and earnestly, without thought of self-seeking, of

disloyalty to the King, or to the Netherlands.

The Duchess, in her terror, her confusion, her powerlessness, leant on

his strength almost entirely.

He had gone to Antwerp after the image-breaking, and restored such order

there that service was held in the desecrated building the following

Sunday; by his presence he had brought about tranquillity in his own

provinces of Holland and Zeeland; he had drawn up the Accord of 24th

August by which the Duchess, terrified almost into flight by the mania

of image-breaking that had swept over the country, granted permission

for free preaching on the part of the heretics, and it was he who had

seen that she kept her promises when she tried to evade them; it was he

who had influenced Brederode to some quietness; he who had counselled

all men on all occasions to patience and moderation.

In all these things he had acted more for Philip's interests, in a

manner more calculated to save Philip's crown, than had any servant of

the King, even Granvelle, beloved of the Escorial.

But he had acted with open eyes, without hope of praise or reward, and

knowing perfectly well that his energetic and honest services would go

for nothing, and that, by refusing implicit obedience in the matter of

the Inquisition, he and the others who had acted with him were for ever

damned in the eyes of Philip.

He knew too that the Regent only used him, that she neither trusted nor

confided in him; she went back on his actions, tied his hands in a

hundred ways, recalled one day the concession she had permitted him to

offer the day before, made him the shield of her imperious weakness and

her vacillating terror.

He knew that she even wrote to Philip denouncing him as a traitor and at

heart a heretic whose design in all he did was self-aggrandizement; none

the less in all crises of trouble and confusion she summoned him and

relied on him.

And the Prince had served her, for in so doing he believed he served the

Netherlands; it was still his dream to bring about some concord which

would render the coming of Alva needless.

But now the fact was brought home to him that he could no longer occupy

an ambiguous position; before him lay a letter from Margaret containing

a copy of the new oath for his signature, and her request that he take

this oath without delay.

William half smiled as he contemplated the two sheets of paper; it was

such a childish, malicious, gratuitous trick on Philip's part, and yet

it served so well to test every man in his service.

And it put the astute Prince, who had walked so long and so carefully

between extremes, to the necessity of having to choose one way or

another.

For this new oath which had arrived from Madrid instead of the

long-promised King himself, instead of the definite news for which

Margaret was so impatiently waiting, consisted of a pledge that he, who

was in the services of His Majesty, was to hold himself bound to serve

and obey the Government in any place, against any person, without

exception or restriction.

The Cardinalists had all taken this oath, and so, after some hesitation,

had Egmont.

And now it lay before William in his room in his castle at Breda, where

his household now was, and to which he had returned after a journey

round the towns of his provinces.

Closed now was the gorgeous mansion in Brussels whose hospitality and

magnificence had been one of the wonders of the capital; over were those

days of luxury and gaiety, feasting and thoughtlessness.

The Prince's household was now reduced to about a hundred and fifty

persons; he was more than ever in need of money, and his debts

increased.

But he had recently refused a present of money from the States of

Holland as a thank-offering for his efforts in establishing peace in

that province; he did not wish anything he did to be laid open to the

charge of personal interest.

Rising and going to the window, with that impulse that always sends men

to the light when in deep thought, he stood looking out on the grey

March sky, the grey walls of the castle, and the bare trees.

With the two papers—the formula of the oath and the Regent's letter—in

his hand, he reviewed his position.

One point in his circumstances was salient beyond all others—his utter

isolation.

He had last seen the two nobles, Egmont and Hoorne—who were his rivals

in greatness and prestige, and had been united to him by so warm a

friendship—at Diendermonde, when he, exasperated by the Regent's

falseness and particularly by her action in sending Eric of Brunswick

with troops to the towns that were within the Lordship of Orange, had

urged Egmont to take a definite stand against the Government.

The Stadtholder of Flanders had refused; he was finally and definitely

pledged to Philip.

And Hoorne, though he had acted justly towards the Reformers in

Tournay—where he had been in authority during his brother's absence—and

though he was embittered by the ruined condition of his fortunes and

Philip's neglect, still remained sullenly loyal to Spain.

Montigny wrote from Madrid an account of Philip's wrath at the

image-breaking, the Accord, and the public speaking, and expressed his

own surprise and disgust at these outrages on the ancient faith.

Louis of Nassau and Ste Aldegonde were now outside the scope of the

Prince's influence and entirely at one with Brederode, who was enclosed

in his hereditary town of Vianen which he appeared to be fortifying, and

with his party were most of the younger nobles, Culemburg, Van der Berg,

De Hammes, and their fellows.

William of Orange stood quite alone.

And he had come to a juncture when he must either go into open

opposition to the King or pledge himself to be his unquestioning

instrument.

He was largely as one feeling his way in the dark with regard to the

policy of Margaret and Philip, but he guessed the faces of the cards so

carefully concealed; if he stooped to take the oath it would not be

likely to save him when the time came for Philip to strike.

The Prince hated Philip well, but he was able to judge him with an

especial clearness; he was convinced in his heart that the King had

already judged and condemned all these Netherlanders who had in any way

opposed him.

At the Diendermonde meeting he had shown to Egmont and Hoorne an

intercepted letter from D'Alava, Spanish envoy in Paris, to the Regent.

In this document was very plainly set forth the King's intention towards

the three grandees, who were to be arrested the moment a Spanish army

reached the Netherlands, and the writer further stated that the two

envoys in Madrid "are met with smiling faces, but will be never

permitted to leave Spain alive."

Egmont put this letter before the Regent, who declared it to be an

impudent forgery; with this statement Egmont was satisfied.

But the Prince of Orange was not; even were the letter false he believed

that it contained the true sentiments of the Government.

There was no one to share his views, to understand his attitude; he felt

that very keenly now, when he stood at the parting of the ways.

Brederode and Louis thought him hesitating and cold, the Count party

thought him disloyal, the people no longer trusted him; his German

relatives were lukewarm in their attachment, his wife never saw him but

she railed and scolded at the way he had allowed himself to be ruined

for a parcel of heretics, and deafened him with complaints of the life

at Breda castle.

The only man standing by him at that moment was Anthony Lalaing, Count

Hoogstraaten, the gallant young noble who had been his right hand in the

troublous Antwerp days.

But Hoogstraaten was at the Prince's feet, waiting to be instructed; he

was nothing on which to lean.

Again William looked at the two papers which the March wind fluttered in

his hand.

If he declared against Philip, what could he do?

What possible chance had the Reformers against Spain?

Valenciennes, which had dared to rebel, had been reduced to misery and

desolation; Noircames had put to death some thousands of the

inhabitants; a garrison had been sent to Tournay; Egmont was forcing

troops on all the towns of Artois and Flanders; the famous confederacy

of the beggars was broken; Brederode was making a burlesque of

resistance.

De Hammes was breaking images and feeding his parrot with holy wafers—a

rope of sand, indeed, there!

And would the German Princes move in the cause of their fellow

Protestants?

This was doubtful, as they were bitterly divided among themselves—some

being Lutherans, some Calvinists.

Then the Emperor, though inclined to acknowledge the Reformation, was

bitter against the Calvinists, and this sect was in the majority among

the Reformers of the Netherlands.

Nor was it likely that he would embroil himself with Spain for the sake

of the oppressed provinces.

There was the Huguenot party in France, but they had their own battles

to fight, their own ground to maintain; there was a Protestant Queen in

England, but she was cautious, and ardent for peace, and not likely to

go to war for the sake of religion.

It seemed to William that Philip had the Netherlands under his heel to

crush as he pleased.

The Prince turned back to his writing-table and took up his pen.

For himself, what was this step going to cost?

Gradually the old magnificent life had changed, the splendid young noble

had become the grave man of affairs. Still not much over thirty, and

endowed with a warm and joyous temperament, used to wealth and power,

pleasure and luxury, he found himself about to take up a position in

which all these things must be foregone.

Looking back over the brief years since his second marriage, he saw how

slow, how subtle had been this change in himself and in his

surroundings; looking ahead, he saw that the coming change would be

marked and swift—and terrible.

He smiled as he retailed the jousts, the tourneys, the feasts, the

hunts, the dances—those days were over.

It had been a silent, secret struggle between him and Philip ever since

that monarch had left the Netherlands.

But now it would be secret and silent no longer.

The Prince flung down his gage to the King.

Mending his quill and drawing a sheet of paper towards him, he wrote to

Madame Parma returning the oath, and resigning all his offices.

* * * * *

"As His Majesty now writes that all officers and servants, with no

exception, must subscribe to this oath, or be discharged from his

service, I must consider myself of the latter number, and will retire

for a time until His Majesty comes to these provinces himself to obtain

a true judgment of affairs.

"Therefore, I pray Your Highness, send some gentleman to me with proper

papers of dismissal, to whom I may deliver my commission, assuring you

at the same time that I will never fail in my service to this country

for the good of this land."