The character of the Prince of Orange never appeared so thoroughly great as at this crisis.  With wisdom and magnanimity rarely equalled and never surpassed, he threw himself and his authority between the indignation of the country and the guilt of Anjou; saving the former from excess, and the latter from execration.  The disgraced and discomfited duke proffered to the states excuses as mean as they were hypocritical; and his brother, the king of France, sent a special envoy to intercede for him.  But it was the influence of William that screened the culprit from public reprobation and ruin, and regained for him the place and power which he might easily have secured for himself, had he not prized the welfare of his country far above all objects of private advantage.  A new treaty was negotiated, confirming Anjou in his former station, with renewed security against any future treachery on his part.  He in the meantime retired to France, to let the public indignation subside; but before he could assume sufficient confidence again to face the country he had so basely injured his worthless existence was suddenly terminated, some thought by poison—­the common solution of all such doubtful questions in those days—­in the month of June in the following year.  He expired in his twenty-ninth year.

A disgusting proof of public ingratitude and want of judgment was previously furnished by the conduct of the people of Antwerp against him who had been so often their deliverer from such various dangers.  Unable to comprehend the greatness of his mind, they openly accused the Prince of Orange of having joined with the French for their subjugation, and of having concealed a body of that detested nation in the citadel.  The populace rushed to the place, and having minutely examined it, were convinced of their own absurdity and the prince’s innocence.  He scorned to demand their punishment for such an outrageous calumny; but he was not the less afflicted at it.  He took the resolution of quitting Flanders, as it turned out, forever; and he retired into Zealand, where he was better known and consequently better trusted.

In the midst of the consequent confusion in the former of these provinces, the prince of Parma, with indefatigable vigor, made himself master of town after town; and turned his particular attention to the creation of a naval force, which was greatly favored by the possession of Dunkirk, Nieuport, and Gravelines.  Native treachery was not idle in this time of tumult and confusion.  The count of Renneberg, governor of Friesland and Groningen, had set the basest example, and gone over to the Spaniards.  The prince of Chimay, son of the duke of Arschot, and governor of Bruges, yielded to the persuasions of his father, and gave up the place to the prince of Parma.  Hembyse also, amply confirming the bad opinion in which the Prince of Orange always held him, returned to Ghent, where he regained a great portion of his former influence, and immediately commenced