By the end of the autumn, the Prince of Orange, more than ever dissatisfied with the anarchical condition of affairs, and with the obstinate jealousy and parsimony of the different provinces, again summoned the country in the most earnest language to provide for the general defence, and to take measures for the inauguration of Anjou.  He painted in sombre colors the prospect which lay before them, if nothing was done to arrest the progress of the internal disorders and of the external foe, whose forces were steadily augmenting:  Had the provinces followed his advice, instead of quarreling among themselves, they would have had a powerful army on foot to second the efforts of Anjou, and subsequently to save Tournay.  They had remained supine and stolid, even while the cannonading against these beautiful cities was in their very ears.  No man seemed to think himself interested in public affair, save when his own province or village was directly attacked.  The general interests of the commonwealth were forgotten, in local jealousy.  Had it been otherwise, the enemy would have long since been driven over the Meuse.  “When money,” continued the Prince, “is asked for to carry on the war, men answer as if they were talking with the dead Emperor.  To say, however, that they will pay no more, is as much as to declare that they will give up their land and their religion both.  I say this, not because I have any desire to put my hands into the common purse.  You well know that I have never touched the public money, but it is important that you should feel that there is no war in the country except the one which concerns you all.”

The states, thus shamed and stimulated, set themselves in earnest to obey the mandates of the Prince, and sent a special mission to England, to arrange with the Duke of Anjou for his formal installation as sovereign.  Saint Aldegonde and other commissioners were already there.  It was the memorable epoch in the Anjou wooing, when the rings were exchanged between Elizabeth and the Duke, and when the world thought that the nuptials were on the point of being celebrated.  Saint Aldegonde wrote to the Prince of Orange on the 22nd of November, that the marriage had been finally settled upon that day.  Throughout the Netherlands, the auspicious tidings were greeted with bonfires, illuminations, and cannonading, and the measures for hailing the Prince, thus highly favored by so great a Queen, as sovereign master of the provinces, were pushed forward with great energy.

Nevertheless, the marriage ended in smoke.  There were plenty of tournays, pageants, and banquets; a profusion of nuptial festivities, in short, where nothing was omitted but the nuptials.  By the end of January, 1582, the Duke was no nearer the goal than upon his arrival three months before.  Acceding, therefore, to the wishes of the Netherland envoys, he prepared for a visit to their country, where the ceremony of his joyful entrance as Duke of Brabant