Meanwhile; the estates, according to their contract, were straining every nerve to raise the requisite sum for the payment of the German troops.  Equitable offers were made, by which the soldiers were to receive a certain proportion of the arrears due to them in merchandize, and the remainder in cash.  The arrangement was rejected, at the secret instance of Don John.  While the Governor affected an ingenuous desire to aid the estates in their efforts to free themselves from the remaining portion of this incumbrance, he was secretly tampering with the leading German officers, in order to prevent their acceptance of any offered terms.  He persuaded these military chiefs that a conspiracy existed, by which they were not only to be deprived of their wages but of their lives.  He warned them to heed no promises, to accept no terms.  Convincing them that he, and he only, was their friend, he arranged secret plans by which they should assist him in taking the fortresses of the country into still more secure possession, for he was not more inclined to trust to the Aerschots and the Havres than was the Prince himself.

The Governor lived in considerable danger, and in still greater dread of capture, if not of assassination.  His imagination, excited by endless tales of ambush and half-discovered conspiracies, saw armed soldiers behind every bush; a pitfall in every street.  Had not the redoubtable Alva been nearly made a captive?  Did not Louis of Nassau nearly entrap the Grand Commander?  No doubt the Prince of Orange was desirous of accomplishing a feat by which he would be placed in regard to Philip on the vantage ground which the King had obtained by his seizure of Count Van Buren, nor did Don John need for warnings coming from sources far from obscure.  In May, the Viscount De Gand had forced his way to his bedside in the dead of night; and wakening him from his sleep, had assured him, with great solemnity, that his life was not worth a pin’s purchase if he remained in Brussels.  He was aware, he said, of a conspiracy by which both his liberty and his life were endangered, and assured him that in immediate flight lay his only safety.

The Governor fled to Mechlin, where the same warnings were soon afterwards renewed, for the solemn sacrifice of Peter Panis, the poor preaching tailor of that city, had not been enough to strike terror to the hearts of all the Netherlanders.  One day, toward the end of June, the Duke of Aerschot, riding out with Don John, gave him a circumstantial account of plots, old and new, whose existence he had discovered or invented, and he showed a copy of a secret letter, written by the Prince of Orange to the estates, recommending the forcible seizure of his Highness.  It is true that the Duke was, at that period and for long after, upon terms of the most “fraternal friendship” with the Prince, and was in the habit of signing himself “his very affectionate brother and cordial friend to serve him,” yet this did not prevent him from