No doubt there were many individuals in the confederacy for whom it was reserved to render honorable service in the national cause.  The names of Louis Nassau, Mamix of St. Aldegonde, Bernard de Merode, were to be written in golden letters in their country’s rolls; but at this moment they were impatient, inconsiderate, out of the control of Orange.  Louis was anxious for the King to come from Spain with his army, and for “the bear dance to begin.”  Brederode, noisy, bawling, and absurd as ever, was bringing ridicule upon the national cause by his buffoonery, and endangering the whole people by his inadequate yet rebellious exertions.

What course was the Prince of Orange to adopt?  He could find no one to comprehend his views.  He felt certain at the close of the year that the purpose of the government was fixed.  He made no secret of his determination never to lend himself as an instrument for the contemplated subjugation of the people.  He had repeatedly resigned all his offices.  He was now determined that the resignation once for all should be accepted.  If he used dissimulation, it was because Philip’s deception permitted no man to be frank.  If the sovereign constantly disavowed all hostile purposes against his people, and manifested extreme affection for the men whom he had already doomed to the scaffold, how could the Prince openly denounce him?  It was his duty to save his country and his friends from impending ruin.  He preserved, therefore, an attitude of watchfulness.  Philip, in the depth of his cabinet, was under a constant inspection by the sleepless Prince.  The sovereign assured his sister that her apprehensions about their correspondence was groundless.  He always locked up his papers, and took the key with him.  Nevertheless, the key was taken out of his pocket and the papers read.  Orange was accustomed to observe, that men of leisure might occupy themselves with philosophical pursuits and with the secrets of nature, but that it was his business to study the hearts of kings.  He knew the man and the woman with whom he had to deal.  We have seen enough of the policy secretly pursued by Philip and Margaret to appreciate the accuracy with which the Prince, groping as it were in the dark, had judged the whole situation.  Had his friends taken his warnings, they might have lived to render services against tyranny.  Had he imitated their example of false loyalty, there would have been one additional victim, more illustrious than all the rest, and a whole country hopelessly enslaved.

It is by keeping these considerations in view, that we can explain his connection with such a man as Brederode.  The enterprises of that noble, of Tholouse, and others, and the resistance of Valenciennes, could hardly have been prevented even by the opposition of the Prince.  But why should he take the field against men who, however rashly or ineffectually, were endeavoring to oppose tyranny, when he knew himself already proscribed and doomed by the tyrant?  Such loyalty he left to Egmont.  Till late in the autumn, he had still believed in the possibility of convoking the states-general, and of making preparations in Germany to enforce their decrees.