life, for which he had never felt a vocation, and to resign all connection with a government by which he felt himself very badly, treated.  Moody, wrathful, disappointed, ruined, and calumniated, he would no longer keep terms with King or Duchess.  He had griefs of long standing against the whole of the royal family.  He had never forgiven the Emperor for refusing him, when young, the appointment of chamberlain.  He had served Philip long and faithfully, but he had never received a stiver of salary or “merced,” notwithstanding all his work as state councillor, as admiral, as superintendent in Spain; while his younger brother had long been in receipt of nine or ten thousand florins yearly.  He had spent four hundred thousand florins in the King’s service; his estates were mortgaged to their full value; he had been obliged to sell, his family plate.  He had done his best in Tourney to serve the Duchess, and he had averted the “Sicilian vespers,” which had been imminent at his arrival.  He had saved the Catholics from a general massacre, yet he heard nevertheless from Montigny, that all his actions were distorted in Spain, and his motives blackened.  His heart no longer inclined him to continue in Philip’s service, even were he furnished with the means of doing so.  He had instructed his secretary, Alonzo de la Loo, whom he had despatched many months previously to Madrid, that he was no longer to press his master’s claims for a “merced,” but to signify that he abandoned all demands and resigned all posts.  He could turn hermit for the rest of his days, as well as the Emperor Charles.  If he had little, he could live upon little.  It was in this sense that he spoke to Margaret of Parma, to Assonleville, to all around him.  It was precisely in this strain and temper that he wrote to Philip, indignantly defending his course at Tourney, protesting against the tortuous conduct of the Duchess, and bluntly declaring that he would treat no longer with ladies upon matters which concerned a man’s honor.

Thus, smarting under a sense of gross injustice, the Admiral expressed himself in terms which Philip was not likely to forgive.  He had undertaken the pacification of Tournay, because it was Montigny’s government, and he had promised his services whenever they should be requisite.  Horn was a loyal and affectionate brother, and it is pathetic to find him congratulating Montigny on being, after all, better off in Spain than in the Netherlands.  Neither loyalty nor the sincere Catholicism for which Montigny at this period commended Horn in his private letters, could save the two brothers from the doom which was now fast approaching.

Thus Horn, blind as Egmont—­not being aware that a single step beyond implicit obedience had created an impassable gulf between Philip and himself—­resolved to meet his destiny in sullen retirement.  Not an entirely disinterested man, perhaps, but an honest one, as the world went, mediocre in mind, but brave, generous, and direct of purpose, goaded by the shafts of calumny, hunted down by the whole pack which fawned upon power as it grew more powerful, he now retreated to his “desert,” as he called his ruined home at Weert, where he stood at bay, growling defiance at the Regent, at Philip, at all the world.