What now was the amount and meaning of this promise on the part of the Prince?  Almost nothing.  He would conform to the demands of the Elector, exactly as he had hitherto said he would conform to them.  Taken in connexion with his steady objections to sign and seal any instrument on the subject—­with his distinct refusal to the Landgrave (through Knuttel) to allow the Princess an evangelical preacher or to receive the sacraments in the Netherlands—­with the vehement, formal, and public protest, on the part of the Landgrave, against the marriage—­with the Prince’s declarations to the Elector at Dresden, which were satisfactory on all points save the religious point,—­what meaning could this verbal promise have, save that the Prince would do exactly as much with regard to the religious question as he had always promised, and no more?  This was precisely what did happen.  There was no pretence on the part of the Elector, afterwards, that any other arrangement had been contemplated.  The Princess lived catholically from the moment of her marriage, exactly as Orange had stated to the Duchess Margaret, and as the Elector knew would be the case.  The first and the following children born of the marriage were baptized by Catholic priests, with very elaborate Catholic ceremonies, and this with the full consent of the Elector, who sent deputies and officiated as sponsor on one remarkable occasion.

Who, of all those guileless lambs then, Philip of Spain, the Elector of Saxony, or Cardinal Granvelle, had been deceived by the language or actions of the Prince?  Not one.  It may be boldly asserted that the Prince, placed in a transition epoch, both of the age and of his own character, surrounded by the most artful and intriguing personages known to history, and involved in a network of most intricate and difficult circumstances, acquitted himself in a manner as honorable as it was prudent.  It is difficult to regard the notarial instrument otherwise than as a memorandum, filed rather by Augustus than by wise William, in order to put upon record for his own justification, his repeated though unsuccessful efforts to procure from the Prince a regularly signed, sealed, and holographic act, upon the points stated in the famous note.

After the delay occasioned by these private formalities, the bridal procession, headed by the court musicians, followed by the court marshals, councillors, great officers of state, and the electoral family, entered the grand hall of the town-house.  The nuptial ceremony was then performed by “the Superintendent Doctor Pfeffinger.”  Immediately afterwards, and in the same hall, the bride and bridegroom were placed publicly upon a splendid, gilded bed, with gold-embroidered curtains, the Princess being conducted thither by the Elector and Electress.  Confects and spiced drinks were then served to them and to the assembled company.  After this ceremony they were conducted to their separate chambers, to dress for dinner.  Before they left the hall, however, Margrave Hans of Brandenburg, on part of the Elector of Saxony, solemnly recommended the bride to her husband, exhorting him to cherish her with faith and affection, and “to leave her undisturbed in the recognized truth of the holy gospel and the right use of the sacraments.”