On the other hand, the work of Orange for the time was finished.  He had saved Antwerp, he had done his best to maintain the liberties of the country, the rights of conscience, and the royal authority, so far as they were compatible with each other.  The alternative had now been distinctly forced upon every man, either to promise blind obedience or to accept the position of a rebel.  William of Orange had thus become a rebel.  He had been requested to sign the new oath, greedily taken by the Mansfelds, the Berlaymont, the Aerachot, and the Egmonts, to obey every order which he might receive, against every person and in every place, without restriction or limitation,—­and he had distinctly and repeatedly declined the demand.  He had again and again insisted upon resigning all his offices.  The Duchess, more and more anxious to gain over such an influential personage to the cause of tyranny, had been most importunate in her requisitions.  “A man with so noble a heart,” she wrote to the Prince, “and with a descent from, such illustrious and loyal ancestors, can surely not forget his duties to his Majesty and the country.”

William of Orange knew his duty to both better than the Duchess could understand.  He answered this fresh summons by reminding her that he had uniformly refused the new and extraordinary pledge required of him.  He had been true to his old oaths, and therefore no fresh pledge was necessary.  Moreover, a pledge without limitation he would never take.  The case might happen, he said, that he should be ordered to do things contrary to his conscience, prejudicial to his Majesty’s service, and in violation of his oaths to maintain the laws of the country.  He therefore once more resigned all his offices, and signified his intention of leaving the provinces.

Margaret had previously invited him to an interview at Brussels, which he had declined, because he had discovered a conspiracy in that place to “play him a trick.”  Assonleville had already been sent to him without effect.  He had refused to meet a deputation of Fleece Knights at Mechlin, from the same suspicion of foul play.  After the termination of the Antwerp tumult, Orange again wrote to the Duchess, upon the 19th March, repeating his refusal to take the oath, and stating that he considered himself as at least suspended from all his functions, since she had refused, upon the ground of incapacity, to accept his formal resignation.  Margaret now determined, by the advice of the state council, to send Secretary Berty, provided with an ample letter of instructions, upon a special mission to the Prince at Antwerp.  That respectable functionary performed his task with credit, going through the usual formalities, and adducing the threadbare arguments in favor of the unlimited oath, with much adroitness and decorum.  He mildly pointed out the impropriety of laying down such responsible posts as those which the Prince now occupied at such a juncture.  He alluded to the distress which the step must occasion to the debonair sovereign.