Meantime, not heeding the storm gathering beyond the narrow seas, the new governor was enjoying the full sunshine of power.  On the 4th February the ceremony of his inauguration took place, with great pomp and ceremony at the Hague.

The beautiful, placid, village-capital of Holland wore much the same aspect at that day as now.  Clean, quiet, spacious streets, shaded with rows of whispering poplars and umbrageous limes, broad sleepy canals—­those liquid highways alone; which glided in phantom silence the bustle, and traffic, and countless cares of a stirring population—­quaint toppling houses, with tower and gable; ancient brick churches, with slender spire and musical chimes; thatched cottages on the outskirts, with stork-nests on the roofs—­the whole without fortification save the watery defences which enclosed it with long-drawn lines on every side; such was the Count’s park, or ’s Graven Haage, in English called the Hague.

It was embowered and almost buried out of sight by vast groves of oaks and beeches.  Ancient Badahuennan forests of sanguinary Druids, the “wild wood without mercy” of Saxon savages, where, at a later period, sovereign Dirks and Florences, in long succession of centuries, had ridden abroad with lance in rest, or hawk on fist; or under whose boughs, in still nearer days, the gentle Jacqueline had pondered and wept over her sorrows, stretched out in every direction between the city and the neighbouring sea.  In the heart of the place stood the ancient palace of the counts, built in the thirteenth century by William ii. of Holland, King of the Romans, with massive brick walls, cylindrical turrets, pointed gable and rose-shaped windows, and with spacious coup-yard, enclosed by feudal moat, drawbridge, and portcullis.

In the great banqueting-hall of the ancient palace, whose cedarn-roof of magnificent timber-work, brought by crusading counts from the Holy Land, had rung with the echoes of many a gigantic revel in the days of chivalry—­an apartment one hundred and fifty feet long and forty feet high—­there had been arranged an elevated platform, with a splendid chair of state for the “absolute” governor, and with a great profusion of gilding and velvet tapestry, hangings, gilt emblems, complimentary devices, lions, unicorns, and other imposing appurtenances.  Prince Maurice, and all the members of his house, the States-General in full costume, and all the great functionaries, civil and military, were assembled.  There was an elaborate harangue by orator Menin, in which it was proved; by copious citations from Holy Writ and from ancient chronicle, that the Lord never forsakes His own; so that now, when the Provinces were at their last gasp by the death of Orange and the loss of Antwerp, the Queen of England and the Earl of Leicester had suddenly descended, as if from Heaven; to their rescue.  Then the oaths of mutual fidelity were exchanged between the governor and the States, and, in conclusion, Dr. Bartholomew Clerk ventured to measure himself with the “big fellows,” by pronouncing an oration which seemed to command universal approbation.  And thus the Earl was duly installed Governor-General of the United States of the Netherlands.