To keep the German princes steady was no easy task; but it was accomplished.  Money was distributed among them, much less indeed than they asked, but much more than they had any decent pretence for asking.  With the Elector of Saxony a composition was made.  He had, together with a strong appetite for subsidies, a great desire to be a member of the most select and illustrious orders of knighthood.  It seems that, instead of the four hundred thousand rixdollars which he had demanded, he consented to accept one hundred thousand and the Garter.296 His prime minister Schoening, the most covetous and perfidious of mankind, was secured by a pension.297 For the Duke of Brunswick Lunenburg, William, not without difficulty, procured the long desired title of Elector of Hanover.  By such means as these the breaches which had divided the coalition were so skilfully repaired that it appeared still to present a firm front to the enemy.  William had complained bitterly to the Spanish government of the incapacity and inertness of Gastanaga.  The Spanish government, helpless and drowsy as it was, could not be altogether insensible to the dangers which threatened Flanders and Brabant.  Gastanaga was recalled; and William was invited to take upon himself the government of the Low Countries, with powers not less than regal.  Philip the Second would not easily have believed that, within a century after his death, his greatgrandson would implore the greatgrandson of William the Silent to exercise the authority of a sovereign at Brussels.298

The offer was in one sense tempting; but William was too wise to accept it.  He knew that the population of the Spanish Netherlands was firmly attached to the Church of Rome.  Every act of a Protestant ruler was certain to be regarded with suspicion by the clergy and people of those countries.  Already Gastanaga, mortified by his disgrace, had written to inform the Court of Rome that changes were in contemplation which would make Ghent and Antwerp as heretical as Amsterdam and London.299 It had doubtless also occurred to William that if, by governing mildly and justly, and by showing a decent respect for the ceremonies and the ministers of the Roman Catholic religion, he should succeed in obtaining the confidence of the Belgians, he would inevitably raise against himself a storm of obloquy in our island.  He knew by experience what it was to govern two nations strongly attached to two different Churches.  A large party among the Episcopalians of England could not forgive him for having consented to the establishment of the presbyterian polity in Scotland.  A large party among the Presbyterians of Scotland blamed him for maintaining the episcopal polity in England.  If he now took under his protection masses, processions, graven images, friaries, nunneries, and, worst of all, Jesuit pulpits, Jesuit confessionals and Jesuit colleges, what could he expect but that England and Scotland would join in one cry of reprobation?