genealogical claim to the provinces than any which Philip of Spain
could assert through the usurping house of Burgundy. In the approaching
tumults he hoped for an opportunity of again asserting the ancient honors
of his name. He was a sworn foe to Spaniards and to "water of the
fountain." But a short time previously to this epoch he had written
to Louis of Nassau, then lying ill of a fever, in order gravely to
remonstrate with him on the necessity of substituting wine for water on
all occasions, and it will be seen in the sequel that the wine-cup was
the great instrument on which he relied for effecting the deliverance of
the country. Although "neither bachelor nor chancellor," as he expressed
it, he was supposed to be endowed with ready eloquence and mother wit.
Even these gifts, however, if he possessed them, were often found wanting
on important emergencies. Of his courage there was no question, but he
was not destined to the death either of a warrior or a martyr. Headlong,
noisy, debauched, but brave, kind-hearted and generous, he was a fitting
representative of his ancestors, the hard-fighting, hard-drinking,
crusading, free-booting sovereigns of Holland and Friesland, and would
himself have been more at home and more useful in the eleventh century
than in the sixteenth.

It was about six o'clock in the evening, on the third day of April
(1566), that the long-expected cavalcade at last entered Brussels.
An immense concourse of citizens of all ranks thronged around the noble
confederates as soon as they made their appearance. They were about two
hundred in number, all on horseback, with pistols in their holsters,
and Brederode, tall, athletic, and martial in his bearing, with handsome
features and fair curling locks upon his shoulders, seemed an appropriate
chieftain for that band of Batavian chivalry.

The procession was greeted with frequent demonstrations of applause as it