A new board of magistrates had been chosen in all the redeemed cities, by popular election.  They were required to take an oath of fidelity to the King of Spain, and to the Prince of Orange as his stadholder; to promise resistance to the Duke of Alva, the tenth penny, and the inquisition; to support every man’s freedom and the welfare of the country; to protect widows, orphans, and miserable persons, and to maintain justice and truth.

Diedrich Sonoy arrived on the 2nd June at Enkbuizen.  He was provided by the Prince with a commission, appointing him Lieutenant-Governor of North Holland or Waterland.  Thus, to combat the authority of Alva was set up the authority of the King.  The stadholderate over Holland and Zealand, to which the Prince had been appointed in 1559, he now reassumed.  Upon this fiction reposed the whole provisional polity of the revolted Netherlands.  The government, as it gradually unfolded itself, from this epoch forward until the declaration of independence and the absolute renunciation of the Spanish sovereign power, will be sketched in a future chapter.  The people at first claimed not an iota more of freedom than was secured by Philip’s coronation oath.  There was no pretence that Philip was not sovereign, but there was a pretence and a determination to worship God according to conscience, and to reclaim the ancient political “liberties” of the land.  So long as Alva reigned, the Blood Council, the inquisition, and martial law, were the only codes or courts, and every charter slept.  To recover this practical liberty and these historical rights, and to shake from their shoulders a most sanguinary government, was the purpose of William and of the people.  No revolutionary standard was displayed.

The written instructions given by the Prince to his Lieutenant Sonoy were to “see that the Word of God was preached, without, however, suffering any hindrance to the Roman Church in the exercise of its religion; to restore fugitives and the banished for conscience sake, and to require of all magistrates and officers of guilds and brotherhoods an oath of fidelity.”  The Prince likewise prescribed the form of that oath, repeating therein, to his eternal honor, the same strict prohibition of intolerance.  “Likewise,” said the formula, “shall those of ’the religion’ offer no let or hindrance to the Roman churches.”

The Prince was still in Germany, engaged in raising troops and providing funds.  He directed; however, the affairs of the insurgent provinces in their minutest details, by virtue of the dictatorship inevitably forced upon him both by circumstances and by the people.  In the meantime; Louis of Nassau, the Bayard of the Netherlands, performed a most unexpected and brilliant exploit.  He had been long in France, negotiating with the leaders of the Huguenots, and, more secretly, with the court.  He was supposed by all the world to be still in that kingdom, when the startling intelligence