war.  Instead of a limited number of heretics in a state which, although constitutional was Catholic, there was now hardly a Papist to be found among the natives.  To accept the pardon then was to concede the victory, and the Hollanders had not yet discovered that they were conquered.  They were resolved, too, not only to be conquered, but annihilated, before the Roman Church should be re-established on their soil, to the entire exclusion of the Reformed worship.  They responded with steadfast enthusiasm to the sentiment expressed by the Prince of Orange, after the second siege of Leyden had been commenced; “As long as there is a living man left in the country, we will contend for our liberty and our religion.”  The single condition of the amnesty assumed, in a phrase; what Spain had fruitlessly striven to establish by a hundred battles, and the Hollanders had not faced their enemy on land and sea for seven years to succumb to a phrase at last.

Moreover, the pardon came from the wrong direction.  The malefactor gravely extended forgiveness to his victims.  Although the Hollanders had not yet disembarrassed their minds of the supernatural theory of government, and felt still the reverence of habit for regal divinity, they naturally considered themselves outraged by the trick now played before them.  The man who had violated all his oaths, trampled upon all their constitutional liberties, burned and sacked their cities, confiscated their wealth, hanged, beheaded, burned, and buried alive their innocent brethren, now came forward, not to implore, but to offer forgiveness.  Not in sackcloth, but in royal robes; not with ashes, but with a diadem upon his head, did the murderer present himself vicariously upon the scene of his crimes.  It may be supposed that, even in the sixteenth century, there were many minds which would revolt at such blasphemy.  Furthermore, even had the people of Holland been weak enough to accept the pardon, it was impossible to believe that the promise would be fulfilled.  It was sufficiently known how much faith was likely to be kept with heretics, notwithstanding that the act was fortified by a papal Bull, dated on the 30th of April, by which Gregory XIII. promised forgiveness to those Netherland sinners who duly repented and sought absolution for their crimes, even although they had sinned more than seven times seven.

For a moment the Prince had feared lest the pardon might produce some effect upon men wearied by interminable suffering, but the event proved him wrong.  It was received with universal and absolute contempt.  No man came forward to take advantage of its conditions, save one brewer in Utrecht, and the son of a refugee peddler from Leyden.  With these exceptions, the only ones recorded, Holland remained deaf to the royal voice.  The city of Leyden was equally cold to the messages of mercy, which were especially addressed to its population by Valdez and his agents.  Certain Netherlanders, belonging to the King’s