Maurice was tired of argument.  There had been much ale-house talk some three months before by a certain blusterous gentleman called van Ostrum about the necessity of keeping the Stadholder in check.  “If the Prince should undertake,” said this pot-valiant hero, “to attack any of the cities of Utrecht or Holland with the hard hand, it is settled to station 8000 or 10,000 soldiers in convenient places.  Then we shall say to the Prince, if you don’t leave us alone, we shall make an arrangement with the Archduke of Austria and resume obedience to him.  We can make such a treaty with him as will give us religious freedom and save us from tyranny of any kind.  I don’t say this for myself, but have heard it on good authority from very eminent persons.”

This talk had floated through the air to the Stadholder.

What evidence could be more conclusive of a deep design on the part of Barneveld to sell the Republic to the Archduke and drive Maurice into exile?  Had not Esquire van Ostrum solemnly declared it at a tavern table?  And although he had mentioned no names, could the “eminent personages” thus cited at second hand be anybody but the Advocate?

Three nights after his last conference with the Hollanders, Maurice quietly ordered a force of regular troops in Utrecht to be under arms at half past three o’clock next morning.  About 1000 infantry, including companies of Ernest of Nassau’s command at Arnhem and of Brederode’s from Vianen, besides a portion of the regular garrison of the place, had accordingly been assembled without beat of drum, before half past three in the morning, and were now drawn up on the market-place or Neu.  At break of day the Prince himself appeared on horseback surrounded by his staff on the Neu or Neude, a large, long, irregular square into which the seven or eight principal streets and thoroughfares of the town emptied themselves.  It was adorned by public buildings and other handsome edifices, and the tall steeple of St. Martin’s with its beautiful open-work spire, lighted with the first rays of the midsummer sun, looked tranquilly down upon the scene.

Each of the entrances to the square had been securely guarded by Maurice’s orders, and cannon planted to command all the streets.  A single company of the famous Waartgelders was stationed in the Neu or near it.  The Prince rode calmly towards them and ordered them to lay down their arms.  They obeyed without a murmur.  He then sent through the city to summon all the other companies of Waartgelders to the Neu.  This was done with perfect promptness, and in a short space of time the whole body of mercenaries, nearly 1000 in number, had laid down their arms at the feet of the Prince.

The snaphances and halberds being then neatly stacked in the square, the Stadholder went home to his early breakfast.  There was an end to those mercenaries thenceforth and for ever.  The faint and sickly resistance to the authority of Maurice offered at Utrecht was attempted nowhere else.