The confederates and sectaries had boasted that they could easily raise an army of sixty thousand men within the provinces,—­that twelve hundred thousand florins monthly would be furnished by the rich merchants of Antwerp, and that it was ridiculous to suppose that the German mercenaries enrolled by the Duchess in Saxony, Hesse, and other Protestant countries, would ever render serious assistance against the adherents of the reformed religion.  Without placing much confidence in such exaggerated statements, the Prince might well be justified in believing himself strong enough, if backed by the confederacy, by Egmont, and by his own boundless influence, both at Antwerp and in his own government, to sustain the constituted authorities of the nation even against a Spanish army, and to interpose with legitimate and irresistible strength between the insane tyrant and the country which he was preparing to crush.  It was the opinion of the best informed Catholics that, if Egmont should declare for the confederacy, he could take the field with sixty thousand men, and make himself master of the whole country at a blow.  In conjunction with Orange, the moral and physical force would have been invincible.

It was therefore not Orange alone, but the Catholics and Protestants alike, the whole population of the country, and the Duchess Regent herself, who desired the convocation of the estates.  Notwithstanding Philip’s deliberate but secret determination never to assemble that body, although the hope was ever to be held out that they should be convened, Margaret had been most importunate that her brother should permit the measure.  “There was less danger,” she felt herself compelled to say, “in assembling than in not assembling the States; it was better to preserve the Catholic religion for a part of the country, than to lose it altogether.”  “The more it was delayed,” she said, “the more ruinous and desperate became the public affairs.  If the measure were postponed much longer, all Flanders, half Brabant, the whole of Holland, Zeland, Gueldrea, Tournay, Lille, Mechlin, would be lost forever, without a chance of ever restoring the ancient religion.”  The country, in short, was “without faith, King, or law,” and nothing worse could be apprehended from any deliberation of the states-general.  These being the opinions of the Duchess, and according to her statement those of nearly all the good Catholics in the country, it could hardly seem astonishing or treasonable that the Prince should also be in favor of the measure.

As the Duchess grew stronger, however, and as the people, aghast at the fate of Tournay and Valenciennes, began to lose courage, she saw less reason for assembling the states.  Orange, on the other hand, completely deserted by Egmont and Horn, and having little confidence in the characters of the ex-confederates, remained comparatively quiescent but watchful.