and it would be hard to blame William of Nassau for the only point
in which he bore the least resemblance to Philip of Spain--that
depth of penetration, which the latter turned to every base and
the former to every noble purpose.

Up to the present moment the Prince of Orange and the Counts
Egmont and Horn, with their partisans and friends, had sincerely
desired the public peace, and acted in the common interest of
the king and the people. But all the nobles had not acted with
the same constitutional moderation. Many of those, disappointed
on personal accounts, others professing the new doctrines, and
the rest variously affected by manifold motives, formed a body
of violent and sometimes of imprudent malcontents. The marriage
of Alexander, prince of Parma, son of the stadtholderess, which
was at this time celebrated at Brussels, brought together an
immense number of these dissatisfied nobles, who became thus drawn
into closer connection, and whose national candor was more than
usually brought out in the confidential intercourse of society.
Politics and patriotism were the common subjects of conversation
in the various convivial meetings that took place. Two German
nobles, Counts Holle and Schwarzemberg, at that period in the
Netherlands, loudly proclaimed the favorable disposition of the
princes of the empire toward the Belgians. It was supposed even
thus early that negotiations had been opened with several of
those sovereigns. In short, nothing seemed wanting but a leader,
to give consistency and weight to the confederacy which was as
yet but in embryo. This was doubly furnished in the persons of
Louis of Nassau and Henry de Brederode. The former, brother of
the Prince of Orange, was possessed of many of those brilliant
qualities which mark men as worthy of distinction in times of