Spanish priests and cardinals assembled at the terrible Council of Blood-with rows of Protestant martyrs burning and hanging in the distance.  Another print showed Prince Maurice and the States-General shaking the leading statesmen of the Commonwealth in a mighty sieve through which came tumbling head foremost to perdition the hated Advocate and his abettors.  Another showed the Arminians as a row of crest-fallen cocks rained upon by the wrath of the Stadholder—­Arminians by a detestable pun being converted into “Arme haenen” or “Poor cocks.”  One represented the Pope and King of Spain blowing thousands of ducats out of a golden bellows into the lap of the Advocate, who was holding up his official robes to receive them, or whole carriage-loads of Arminians starting off bag and baggage on the road to Rome, with Lucifer in the perspective waiting to give them a warm welcome in his own dominions; and so on, and so on.  Moving through the throng, with iron calque on their heads and halberd in hand, were groups of Waartgelders scowling fiercely at many popular demonstrations such as they had been enlisted to suppress, but while off duty concealing outward symptoms of wrath which in many instances perhaps would have been far from genuine.

For although these mercenaries knew that the States of Holland, who were responsible for the pay of the regular troops then in Utrecht, authorized them to obey no orders save from the local authorities, yet it was becoming a grave question for the Waartgelders whether their own wages were perfectly safe, a circumstance which made them susceptible to the atmosphere of Contra-Remonstrantism which was steadily enwrapping the whole country.  A still graver question was whether such resistance as they could offer to the renowned Stadholder, whose name was magic to every soldier’s heart not only in his own land but throughout Christendom, would not be like parrying a lance’s thrust with a bulrush.  In truth the senior captain of the Waartgelders, Harteveld by name, had privately informed the leaders of the Barneveld party in Utrecht that he would not draw his sword against Prince Maurice and the States-General.  “Who asks you to do so?” said some of the deputies, while Ledenberg on the other hand flatly accused him of cowardice.  For this affront the Captain had vowed revenge.

And in the midst of this scene of jollity and confusion, that midsummer night, entered the stern Stadholder with his fellow commissioners; the feeble plans for shutting the gates upon him not having been carried into effect.

“You hardly expected such a guest at your fair,” said he to the magistrates, with a grim smile on his face as who should say, “And what do you think of me now I have came?”

Meantime the secret conference of Grotius and colleagues with the States of Utrecht proceeded.  As a provisional measure, Sir John Ogle, commander of the forces paid by Holland, had been warned as to where his obedience was due.  It had likewise been intimated that the guard should be doubled at the Amersfoort gate, and a watch set on the river Lek above and below the city in order to prevent fresh troops of the States-General from being introduced by surprise.