The Prince of Orange maintained at Antwerp an attitude of extreme firmness and caution.  His time for action had not yet arrived; but his advice and protection were of infinite importance on many occasions.  John de Marnix, lord of Toulouse, brother of Philip de St. Aldegonde, took possession of Osterweel on the Scheldt, a quarter of a league from Antwerp, and fortified himself in a strong position.  But he was impetuously attacked by the Count de Lannoy with a considerable force, and perished, after a desperate defence, with full one thousand of his followers.  Three hundred who laid down their arms were immediately after the action butchered in cold blood.  Antwerp was on this occasion saved from the excesses of its divided and furious citizens, and preserved from the horrors of pillage, by the calmness and intrepidity of the Prince of Orange.  Valenciennes at length capitulated to the royalists, disheartened by the defeat and death of De Marnix, and terrified by a bombardment of thirty-six hours.  The governor, two preachers, and about forty of the citizens were hanged by the victors, and the reformed religion prohibited.  Noircarmes promptly followed up his success.  Maestricht, Turnhout, and Bois-le-duc submitted at his approach; and the insurgents were soon driven from all the provinces, Holland alone excepted.  Brederode fled to Germany, where he died the following year.

The stadtholderess showed, in her success, no small proofs of decision.  She and her counsellors, acting under orders from the king, were resolved on embarrassing to the utmost the patriot lords; and a new oath of allegiance, to be proposed to every functionary of the state, was considered as a certain means for attaining this object without the violence of an unmerited dismissal.  The terms of this oath were strongly opposed to every principle of patriotism and toleration.  Count Mansfield was the first of the nobles who took it.  The duke of Arschot, Counts Meghem, Berlaimont, and Egmont followed his example.  The counts of Horn, Hoogstraeten, De Brederode, and others, refused on various pretexts.  Every artifice and persuasion was tried to induce the Prince of Orange to subscribe to this new test; but his resolution had been for some time formed.  He saw that every chance of constitutional resistance to tyranny was for the present at an end.  The time for petitioning was gone by.  The confederation was dissolved.  A royalist army was in the field; the Duke of Alva was notoriously approaching at the head of another, more numerous.  It was worse than useless to conclude a hollow convention with the stadtholderess of mock loyalty on his part and mock confidence on hers.  Many other important considerations convinced William that his only honorable, safe, and wise course was to exile himself from the Netherlands altogether, until more propitious circumstances allowed of his acting openly, boldly, and with effect.