The Emperor Maximilian had again issued his injunctions against the military operations of Orange.  Bound to the monarch of Spain by so many family ties, being at once cousin, brother-in-law, and father-in-law of Philip, it was difficult for him to maintain the attitude which became him, as chief of that Empire to which the peace of Passau had assured religious freedom.  It had, however, been sufficiently proved that remonstrances and intercessions addressed to Philip were but idle breath.  It had therefore become an insult to require pacific conduct from the Prince on the ground of any past or future mediation.  It was a still grosser mockery to call upon him to discontinue hostilities because the Netherlands were included in the Empire, and therefore protected by the treaties of Passau and Augsburg.  Well did the Prince reply to his Imperial Majesty’s summons in a temperate but cogent letter, in which he addressed to him from his camp, that all intercessions had proved fruitless, and that the only help for the Netherlands was the sword.

The Prince had been delayed for a month at Roermonde, because, as he expressed it; “he had not a single sou,” and because, in consequence, the troops refused to advance into the Netherlands.  Having at last been furnished with the requisite guarantees from the Holland cities for three months’ pay, on the 27th of August, the day of the publication of his letter to the Emperor, he crossed the Meuse and took his circuitous way through Diest, Tirlemont, Sichem, Louvain, Mechlin, Termonde, Oudenarde, Nivelles.  Many cities and villages accepted his authority and admitted his garrisons.  Of these Mechlin was the most considerable, in which he stationed a detachment of his troops.  Its doom was sealed in that moment.  Alva could not forgive this act of patriotism on the part of a town which had so recently excluded his own troops.  “This is a direct permission of God,” he wrote, in the spirit of dire and revengeful prophecy, “for us to punish her as she deserves, for the image-breaking and other misdeeds done there in the time of Madame de Parma, which our Lord was not willing to pass over without chastisement.”

Meantime the Prince continued his advance.  Louvain purchased its neutrality for the time with sixteen thousand ducats; Brussels obstinately refused to listen to him, and was too powerful to be forcibly attacked at that juncture; other important cities, convinced by the arguments and won by the eloquence of the various proclamations which he scattered as he advanced, ranged themselves spontaneously and even enthusiastically upon his side.  How different world have been the result of his campaign but for the unexpected earthquake which at that instant was to appal Christendom, and to scatter all his well-matured plans and legitimate hopes.  His chief reliance, under Providence and his own strong heart, had been upon French assistance.  Although Genlis, by his misconduct, had sacrificed