for his next step was immediately to impress upon the provinces which had thus united in casting down the gauntlet to a common enemy the necessity of uniting in a permanent league.  One province was already lost by the fall of Namur.  The bonds of a permanent union for the other sixteen could be constructed of but one material—­ religious toleration, and for a moment, the genius of Orange, always so far beyond his age, succeeded in raising the mass of his countrymen to the elevation upon which he had so long stood alone.

The “new or nearer Union of Brussels” was signed on the 10th of December, eleven months after the formation of the first union.  This was the third and, unfortunately, the last confederation of all the Netherlands.  The original records have been lost, but it is known that the measure was accepted unanimously in the estates-general as soon as presented.  The leading Catholic nobles were with the army, but a deputation, sent to the camp, returned with their signatures and hearty approval; with the signatures and approval of such determined Catholics as the Lalains, Meluns, Egmont, and La Motte.  If such men could unite for the sake of the fatherland in an act of religious toleration, what lofty hopes for the future was not the Prince justified in forming; for it was the Prince alone who accomplished this victory of reason over passion.  As a monument, not only of his genius, but of the elevated aspirations of a whole people in an age of intolerance, the “closer Union of Brussels” deserves especial place in the history of human progress.  Unfortunately, it was destined to a brief existence.  The battle of Gemblours was its death-blow, and before the end of a month, the union thus hopefully constructed was shattered for ever.  The Netherland people was never united again.  By the Union of Utrecht, seven states subsequently rescued their existence, and lived to construct a powerful republic.  The rest were destined to remain for centuries in the condition of provinces to a distant metropolis, to be shifted about as make-weights in political balances, and only in our own age to come into the honorable rank of independent constitutional states.

The Prince had, moreover, strengthened himself for the coming struggle by an alliance with England.  The thrifty but politic Queen, fearing the result of the secret practices of Alencon—­whom Orange, as she suspected, still kept in reserve to be played off, in case of need, against Matthias and Don John—­had at last consented to a treaty of alliance and subsidy.  On the 7th of January, 1578, the Marquis Havre, envoy from the estates, concluded an arrangement in London, by which the Queen was to lend them her credit—­in other words, to endorse their obligations, to the amount of one hundred thousand pounds sterling.  The money was to be raised wherever the states might be able to negotiate the bills, and her liability was to cease within a year.  She was likewise to be collaterally secured