Meantime, the Seigneur de Selles, brother of the deceased Noircarmes, had arrived from Spain.  He was the special bearer of a letter from the King to the states-general, written in reply to their communications of the 24th of August and 8th of September of the previous year.  The tone of the royal despatch was very affectionate, the substance such as entirely to justify the whole policy of Orange.  It was obvious that the penetrating and steadfast statesman had been correct in refusing to be moved to the right or the left by the specious language of Philip’s former letters, or by the apparent frankness of Don John.  No doubt the Governor had been sincere in his desire for peace, but the Prince knew very well his incapacity to confer that blessing.  The Prince knew—­what no man else appeared fully to comprehend at that epoch—­that the mortal combat between the Inquisition and the Reformation was already fully engaged.  The great battle between divine reason and right divine, on which the interests of unborn generations were hanging, was to be fought out, before the eyes of all Christendom, on the plain of the Netherlands.

Orange was willing to lay down his arms if he could receive security for the Reformed worship.  He had no desire to exterminate the ancient religion, but he meant also to protect the new against extermination.  Such security, he felt, would never be granted, and he had therefore resolutely refused to hearken to Don John, for he was sure that peace with him was impossible.  The letters now produced by De Selles confirmed his positions completely.  The King said not a word concerning the appointment of a new governor-general, but boldly insisted upon the necessity of maintaining the two cardinal points—­his royal supremacy, and the Catholic religion upon the basis adopted by his father, the Emperor Charles the Fifth.

This was the whole substance of his communication:  the supremacy of royalty and of papacy as in the time of Charles the Fifth.  These cabalistic words were repeated twice in the brief letter to the estates.  They were repeated five times in the instructions furnished by his Majesty to De Selles.  The letter and the instructions indeed contained nothing else.  Two simples were offered for the cure of the body politic, racked by the fever and convulsion of ten horrible years—­two simples which the patient could hardly be so unreasonable as to reject—­unlimited despotism and religious persecution.  The whole matter lay in a nut-shell, but it was a nut-shell which enclosed the flaming edicts of Charles the Fifth, with their scaffolds, gibbets, racks, and funeral piles.  The Prince and the states-general spurned such pacific overtures, and preferred rather to gird themselves for the combat.