On the other hand, the military affairs of the states were in confusion.  Troops in nearly equal numbers to those of the royal army had been assembled, but the chief offices had been bestowed, by a mistaken policy, upon the great nobles.  Already the jealousy of Orange, entertained by their whole order was painfully apparent.  Notwithstanding the signal popularity which had made his appointment as Lieutenant-general inevitable it was not easy for him always to vindicate his authority over captious and rival magnates.  He had every wish to conciliate the affections of men whom he could not in his heart respect, and he went as far in gratifying their ambition as comported with his own dignity; perhaps farther than was consistent with the national interests.  He was still willing to trust Lalain, of whose good affection to the country he felt sure.  Re had even been desirous of declining the office of Lieutenant-General, in order to avoid giving that nobleman the least occasion to think “that he would do him, or any other gentleman of the army, prejudice in any single matter in the world.”  This magnanimity had, not been repaid with corresponding confidence.  We have already seen that Lalain had been secretly in the interest of Anjou ever since his wife and himself had lost their hearts to Margaret of Navarre; yet the Count was chief commander of the infantry in the states’ army then assembled.  Robert Melun, Vicomte de Gand, was commander of the cavalry, but he had recently been private envoy from Don John to the English Queen.  Both these gentlemen, together with Pardieu De la Motte, general of the artillery, were voluntarily absent from the forces, under pretext of celebrating the wedding of the Seigneur De Bersel with the niece and heiress of the unfortunate Marquis of Bergen.  The ghost of that ill-starred noble might almost have seemed to rise at the nuptial banquet of his heiress, to warn the traitors of the signal and bloody massacre which their treachery was soon to occasion.  Philip Egmont, eldest son of the famous Lamoral, was with the army, as was the Seigneur de Heze, hero of the State Council’s arrest, and the unstable Havre.  But little was to be hoped from such leaders.  Indeed, the affairs of the states continued to be in as perplexed a condition as that which honest John of Nassau had described some weeks before.  “There were very few patriots,” he had said, “but plenty of priests, with no lack of inexperienced lads—­some looking for distinction, and others for pelf.”

The two armies had been mustered in the latter days of January.  The Pope had issued a bull for the benefit of Don John, precisely similar to those formerly employed in the crusades against the Saracens.  Authority was given him to levy contributions upon ecclesiastical property, while full absolution, at the hour of death, for all crimes committed during a whole lifetime, was proclaimed to those who should now join the standard of the Cross.  There was