The mother watched his honest labours sorrowfully.  She knew that the chivalrous champion of the faith, the sincere enthusiast, to whom nothing was higher than honour and the stainless purity of his name, must succumb to his most eminent foe, the Prince of Orange, with his tireless, inventive, thoroughly statesmanlike intellect, which preserved the power of seeing in the darkness, and did not shrink from deceit where it would promote the great cause which she did not understand, but to which he consecrated every drop of his heart’s blood, every penny of his property.

Her son came to the country as a Spaniard and the brother of the hated Philip on the day of the most abominable crime history ever narrated, and which his followers committed; and who stood higher in the hearts of the people of the Netherlands than their beloved helper in need, their “Father William”?

She saw her son go to this hopeless conflict like a garlanded victim to the altar.  She had nothing to aid him save her prayers and the execution of the heavy sacrifice which she had resolved to make.  The collapse of her belief, wishes, and expectations produced a transformation of her whole nature.  A world of ideas had crumbled into fragments before and within her, and from their ruins a new one suddenly sprang up in her strong soul.  Where yesterday her warlike temper had defied or resisted, to-day she retired with lowered weapons.  To contend against her son, and force her new knowledge upon him, would have seemed to her foolish and fruitless, for she desired and expected nothing more from him than that he should keep for her the love she had won.

So she yielded to his desire without resistance.  However his destiny might turn, he should be obliged to admit that his mother had omitted nothing in her power to open to him the path which, according to his own opinion, might lead to the height for which he longed.

She made use of his affectionate readiness to serve her only so far as to beg him to take charge of her son Conrad.  He did so willingly, and endeavoured to induce the young man to enter the priesthood.  He wished to spare him the disappointments which had marred his own life, but Conrad preferred the army.

His mother did not forget him, and did everything in her power for him.  He remained on terms of affectionate union with her, but he did not see her again until the gold of her hair was changed to silver, and he himself had risen to the rank of colonel.

This was to happen in Spain.  Barbara had gone there by way of Genoa under the escort of Count Faconvergue, commander of the German mercenaries, and while doing so had been treated with the respect and distinguished consideration which was her due as the mother of Don John of Austria, who had now acknowledged her.

Like every other wish of her son, Barbara had fulfilled with quiet indulgence his desire that she would not again enter the Netherlands and Ghent.