While William was thus directing and animating the whole nation with his spirit, his immediate friends became more and more anxious concerning the perils to which he was exposed.  His mother, who had already seen her youngest-born, Henry, her Adolphus, her chivalrous Louis, laid in their bloody graves for the cause of conscience, was most solicitous for the welfare of her “heart’s-beloved lord and son,” the Prince of Orange.  Nevertheless, the high-spirited old dame was even more alarmed at the possibility of a peace in which that religious liberty for which so much dear blood had been, poured forth should be inadequately secured.  “My heart longs for certain tidings from my lord,” she wrote to William, “for methinks the peace now in prospect will prove but an oppression for soul and conscience.  I trust my heart’s dearly-beloved lord and son will be supported by Divine grace to do nothing against God and his own soul’s salvation.  ’Tis better to lose the temporal than the eternal.”  Thus wrote the mother of William, and we can feel the sympathetic thrill which such tender and lofty words awoke in his breast.  His son, the ill-starred Philip, now for ten years long a compulsory sojourner in Spain, was not yet weaned from his affection for his noble parent, but sent messages of affection to him whenever occasion offered, while a less commendable proof of his filial affection he had lately afforded, at the expense of the luckless captain of his Spanish guard.  That officer having dared in his presence to speak disrespectfully of his father, was suddenly seized about the waist by the enraged young Count, hurled out of the window, and killed stone-dead upon the spot.  After this exhibition of his natural feelings, the Spanish government thought it necessary to take more subtle means to tame so turbulent a spirit.  Unfortunately they proved successful.

Count John of Nassau, too, was sorely pressed for money.  Six hundred thousand florins; at least, had been advanced by himself and brothers to aid the cause of Netherland freedom.  Louis and himself had, unhesitatingly and immediately, turned into that sacred fund the hundred thousand crowns which the King of France had presented them for their personal use, for it was not the Prince of Orange alone who had consecrated his wealth and his life to the cause, but the members of his family, less immediately interested in the country, had thus furnished what may well be called an enormous subsidy, and one most disproportioned to their means.  Not only had they given all the cash which they could command by mortgaging their lands and rents, their plate and furniture, but, in the words of Count John himself, “they had taken the chains and jewels from the necks of their wives, their children, and their mother, and had hawked them about, as if they had themselves been traders and hucksters.”  And yet, even now, while stooping under this prodigious debt, Count John asked not for present repayment.  He only wrote to the Prince to signify his extreme embarrassment, and to request some obligation or recognition from the cities of Holland and Zealand, whence hitherto no expression of gratitude or acknowledgment had proceeded.