to assassinate the Prince.  Before his death, he confessed that he had come from Spain solely for the purpose, and that he had conferred with La Motte, governor of Gravelines, as to the best means of accomplishing his design.  In April, 1584, Hans Hanzoon, a merchant of Flushing, had been executed for attempting to destroy the Prince by means of gunpowder, concealed under his house in that city, and under his seat in the church.  He confessed that he had deliberately formed the intention of performing the deed, and that he had discussed the details of the enterprise with the Spanish ambassador in Paris.  At about the same time, one Le Goth, a captive French officer, had been applied to by the Marquis de Richebourg, on the part of Alexander of Parma, to attempt the murder of the Prince.  Le Goth had consented, saying that nothing could be more easily done; and that he would undertake to poison him in a dish of eels, of which he knew him to be particularly fond.  The Frenchman was liberated with this understanding; but being very much the friend of Orange, straightway told him the whole story, and remained ever afterwards a faithful servant of the states.  It is to be presumed that he excused the treachery to which he owed his escape from prison on the ground that faith was no more to be kept with murderers than with heretics.  Thus within two years there had been five distinct attempts to assassinate the Prince, all of them, with the privity of the Spanish government.  A sixth was soon to follow.

In the summer of 1584, William of Orange was residing at Delft, where his wife, Louisa de Coligny, had given birth, in the preceding winter, to a son, afterwards the celebrated stadholder, Frederic Henry.  The child had received these names from his two godfathers, the Kings of Denmark and of Navarre, and his baptism had been celebrated with much rejoicing on the 12th of June, in the place of his birth.

It was a quiet, cheerful, yet somewhat drowsy little city, that ancient burgh of Delft.  The placid canals by which it was intersected in every direction were all planted with whispering, umbrageous rows of limes and poplars, and along these watery highways the traffic of the place glided so noiselessly that the town seemed the abode of silence and tranquillity.  The streets were clean and airy, the houses well built, the whole aspect of the place thriving.

One of the principal thoroughfares was called the old Delftstreet.  It was shaded on both sides by lime trees, which in that midsummer season covered the surface of the canal which flowed between them with their light and fragrant blossoms.  On one side of this street was the “old kirk,” a plain, antique structure of brick, with lancet windows, and with a tall, slender tower, which inclined, at a very considerable angle, towards a house upon the other side of the canal.  That house was the mansion of William the Silent.  It stood directly opposite the church, being separated by a spacious courtyard from the street, while the stables and other offices in the rear extended to the city wall.  A narrow lane, opening out of Delft-street, ran along the side of the house and court, in the direction of the ramparts.  The house was a plain, two-storied edifice of brick, with red-tiled roof, and had formerly been a cloister dedicated to Saint Agatha, the last prior of which had been hanged by the furious Lumey de la Merck.