1,500,000 florins. He was, however, although deeply, not desperately
involved, and had already taken active measures to regulate and reduce
his establishment. His revenues were vast, both in his own right and in
that of his deceased wife. He had large claims upon the royal treasury
for service and expenditure. He had besides ample sums to receive from
the ransoms of the prisoners of St. Quentin and Gravelines, having served
in both campaigns. The amount to be received by individuals from this
source may be estimated from the fact that Count Horn, by no means one
of the most favored in the victorious armies, had received from Leonor
d'Orleans, Due de Loggieville, a ransom of eighty thousand crowns. The
sum due, if payment were enforced, from the prisoners assigned to Egmont,
Orange, and others, must have been very large. Granvelle estimated the
whole amount at two millions; adding, characteristically, "that this kind
of speculation was a practice" which our good old fathers, lovers of
virtue, would not have found laudable. In this the churchman was right,
but he might have added that the "lovers of virtue" would have found it
as little "laudable" for ecclesiastics to dispose of the sacred offices
in their gift, for carpets, tapestry, and annual payments of certain
percentages upon the cure of souls. If the profits respectively gained
by military and clerical speculators in that day should be compared, the
disadvantage would hardly be found to lie with those of the long robe.

Such, then, at the beginning of 1560, was William of Orange; a generous,
stately, magnificent, powerful grandee. As a military commander, he had
acquitted himself very creditably of highly important functions at an
early age. Nevertheless it was the opinion of many persons, that he was
of a timid temperament. He was even accused of having manifested an
unseemly panic at Philippeville, and of having only been restrained by
the expostulations of his officers, from abandoning both that fortress
and Charlemont to Admiral Coligny, who had made his appearance in the