his brethren.  It was no wonder that in that age of religious bigotry he should have been assaulted on both sides.  While the Pope excommunicated him as a heretic, and the King set a price upon his head as a rebel, the fanatics of the new religion denounced him as a godless man.  Peter Dathenus, the unfrocked monk of Poperingen, shrieked out in his pulpit that the “Prince of Orange cared nothing either for God or for religion.”

The death of Requesens had offered the first opening through which the watchful Prince could hope to inflict a wound in the vital part of Spanish authority in the Netherlands.  The languor of Philip and the procrastinating counsel of the dull Hopper unexpectedly widened the opening.  On the 24th of March letters were written by his Majesty to the states-general, to the provincial estates, and to the courts of justice, instructing them that, until further orders, they were all to obey the Council of State.  The King was confident that all would do their utmost to assist that body in securing the holy Catholic Faith and the implicit obedience of the country to its sovereign.  He would, in the meantime, occupy himself with the selection of a new Governor-General, who should be of his family and blood.  This uncertain and perilous condition of things was watched with painful interest in neighbouring countries.

The fate of all nations was more or less involved in the development of the great religious contest now waging in the Netherlands.  England and France watched each other’s movements in the direction of the provinces with intense jealousy.  The Protestant Queen was the natural ally of the struggling Reformers, but her despotic sentiments were averse to the fostering of rebellion against the Lord’s anointed.  The thrifty Queen looked with alarm at the prospect of large subsidies which would undoubtedly be demanded of her.  The jealous Queen could as ill brook the presence of the French in the Netherlands as that of the Spaniards whom they were to expel.  She therefore embarrassed, as usual, the operations of the Prince by a course of stale political coquetry.  She wrote to him, on the 18th of March, soon after the news of the Grand Commander’s death, saying that she could not yet accept the offer which had been made to her, to take the provinces of Holland and Zealand under her safe keeping, to assume, as Countess, the sovereignty over them, and to protect the inhabitants against the alleged tyranny of the King of Spain.  She was unwilling to do so until she had made every effort to reconcile them with that sovereign.  Before the death of Requesens she had been intending to send him an envoy, proposing a truce, for the purpose of negotiation.  This purpose she still retained.  She should send commissioners to the Council of State and to the new Governor, when he should arrive.  She should also send a special envoy to the King of Spain.  She doubted not that the King would take her advice, when he heard her speak in such straightforward language.  In the meantime, she hoped that they would negotiate with no other powers.