Gillain de Fiennes, Seigneur de Lumbres, was appointed to succeed him.  At the same time strict orders were issued by Orange, forbidding all hostile measures against the Emperor or any of the princes of the empire, against Sweden, Denmark, England, or against any potentates who were protectors of the true Christian religion.  The Duke of Alva and his adherents were designated as the only lawful antagonists.  The Prince, moreover, gave minute instructions as to the discipline to be observed in his fleet.  The articles of war were to be strictly enforced.  Each commander was to maintain a minister on board his ship, who was to preach God’s word, and to preserve Christian piety among the crew.  No one was to exercise any command in the fleet save native Netherlanders, unless thereto expressly commissioned by the Prince of Orange.  All prizes were to be divided and distributed by a prescribed rule.  No persons were to be received on board, either as sailors or soldiers, save “folk of goad name and fame.”  No man who had ever been punished of justice was to be admitted.  Such were the principal features in the organization of that infant navy which, in course of this and the following centuries, was to achieve so many triumphs, and to which a powerful and adventurous mercantile marine had already led the way.  “Of their ships,” said Cardinal Bentivoglio, “the Hollanders make houses, of their houses schools.  Here they are born, here educated, here they learn their profession.  Their sailors, flying from one pale to the other, practising their art wherever the sun displays itself to mortals, become so skilful that they can scarcely be equalled, certainly not surpassed; by any nation in the civilized world.”

The Prince, however, on his return from France, had never been in so forlorn a condition.  “Orange is plainly perishing,” said one of the friends of the cause.  Not only had he no funds to organize new levies, but he was daily exposed to the most clamorously-urged claims, growing out of the army which be had been recently obliged to disband.  It had been originally reported in the Netherlands that he had fallen in the battle of Moncontour.  “If he have really been taken off,” wrote Viglius, hardly daring to credit the great news, “we shall all of us have less cause to tremble.”  After his actual return, however, lean and beggared, with neither money nor credit, a mere threatening shadow without substance or power, he seemed to justify the sarcasm of Granvelle.  “Vana sine viribus ira,” quoted the Cardinal, and of a verity it seemed that not a man was likely to stir in Germany in his behalf, now that so deep a gloom had descended upon his cause.  The obscure and the oppressed throughout the provinces and Germany still freely contributed out of their weakness and their poverty, and taxed themselves beyond their means to assist enterprizes for the relief of the Netherlands.  The great ones of the earth, however, those on whom the Prince had relied; those to whom he had given his heart; dukes, princes, and electors, in this fatal change of his fortunes fell away like water.