That William III had any complicity in this execrable faict, as it was well styled by the new council-pensionary Fagel, there is not the slightest evidence.  He was absent from the Hague at the time and wholly preoccupied with the sore necessities of the military position; and it is said that he was much affected at hearing the dreadful news.  But his naturally cold and self-contained nature had been hardened in the school of adversity during the long years of humiliation which had been imposed upon him by John de Witt and his party.  He had endured in proud patience awaiting the hour when he could throw off the yoke, and now that it had come he could not forgive.  Under the plea that the number of those implicated in the deed was so large that it was impossible to punish them and thus stir up party passions at a time when the whole energies of the nation were needed for the war, he took no steps to bring the offenders to justice.  Unfortunately for his reputation he was not content with a neutral attitude, but openly protected and rewarded the three chief offenders Tichelaer, Verhoef and Van Bankhem, all of them men of disreputable character.

Thus two of the greatest statesmen and patriots that Holland has produced, John van Oldenbarneveldt and John de Witt, both perished miserably, victims of the basest national ingratitude; and it will ever remain a stain upon the national annals and upon the memory of two illustrious Princes of Orange, Maurice and William III, that these tragedies were not averted.

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CHAPTER XVIII

THE STADHOLDERATE OF WILLIAM III, 1672-1688

In the early summer of 1672, when William resolved to concentrate all his available forces for the defence of Holland covered by its water-line, the military situation was apparently hopeless.  Had Turenne and Luxemburg made a united effort to force this line at the opening of the campaign the probability is that they would have succeeded.  Instead of doing so they expended their energies in the capture of a number of fortified places in Gelderland, Overyssel and North Brabant; and in the meantime the stadholder was week by week strengthening the weak points in his defences, encouraging his men, personally supervising every detail and setting an example of unshaken courage and of ceaseless industry.  He had at his side, as his field-marshal, George Frederick, Count of Waldeck, an officer of experience and skill who had entered the Republic’s service, and Van Beverningh as Commissioner of the States-General.  With their help and counsel he had before autumn an efficient army of 57,000 men on guard behind entrenchments at all assailable points, while armed vessels patrolled the waterways.  Outside the line Nijmwegen, Grave, Coevorden, Steenwijk and other smaller places had fallen; but the Muenster-Cologne forces, after a siege lasting from July 9 to August 28, had to retire from Groningen.  The French armies were all this time being constantly weakened by having to place garrisons in the conquered provinces; and neither Turenne nor Luxemburg felt strong enough to attack the strongly-protected Dutch frontiers behind the water-line.