For the waves of bitterness were rolling far and wide around them.  A medal, struck in Holland at this period, represented a dismasted hulk reeling through the tempest.  The motto, “incertum quo fate ferent” (who knows whither fate is sweeping her?) expressed most vividly the ship wrecked condition of the country.  Alexander of Parma, the most accomplished general and one of the most adroit statesmen of the age, was swift to take advantage of the calamity which had now befallen the rebellious Provinces.  Had he been better provided with men and money, the cause of the States might have seemed hopeless.  He addressed many letters to the States General, to the magistracies of various cities, and to individuals, affecting to consider that with the death of Orange had died all authority, as well as all motive for continuing the contest with Spain.  He offered easy terms of reconciliation with the discarded monarch—­always reserving, however, as a matter of course, the religious question—­for it was as well known to the States as to Parma that there was no hope of Philip making concessions upon that important point.

In Holland and Zeeland the Prince’s blandishments were of no avail.  His letters received in various towns of those Provinces, offered, said one who saw them, “almost every thing they would have or demand, even till they should repent.”  But the bait was not taken.  Individuals and municipalities were alike stanch, remembering well that faith was not to be kept with heretics.  The example was followed by the Estates of other Provinces, and all sent in to the General Assembly, soon in session at Delft, “their absolute and irrevocable authority to their deputies to stand to that which they, the said States General, should dispose of as to their persons, goods and country; a resolution and agreement which never concurred before among them, to this day, in what age or government soever.”

It was decreed that no motion of agreement “with the tyrant of Spain” should be entertained either publicly or privately, “under pain to be reputed ill patriots.”  It was also enacted in the city of Dort that any man that brought letter or message from the enemy to any private person “should be forthwith hanged.”  This was expeditious and business-like.  The same city likewise took the lead in recording its determination by public act, and proclaiming it by sound of trumpet, “to live and die in the cause now undertaken.”

In Flanders and Brabant the spirit was less noble.  Those Provinces were nearly lost already.  Bruges seconded Parma’s efforts to induce its sister-city Ghent to imitate its own baseness in surrendering without a struggle; and that powerful, turbulent, but most anarchical little commonwealth was but too ready to listen to the voice of the tempter.  “The ducats of Spain, Madam, are trotting about in such fashion,” wrote envoy Des Pruneaux to Catherine de Medici, “that they have vanquished a great quantity of courages.  Your Majesties, too, must employ money if you wish to advance one step.”  No man knew better than Parma how to employ such golden rhetoric to win back a wavering rebel to his loyalty, but he was not always provided with a sufficient store of those practical arguments.