mission. There was nothing of the charlatan in his character. His
nature was true and steadfast. No narrow-minded usurper was ever more
loyal to his own aggrandisement than this large-hearted man to the cause
of oppressed humanity. Yet it was inevitable that baser minds should
fail to recognise his purity. While he exhausted his life for the
emancipation of a people, it was easy to ascribe all his struggles to the
hope of founding a dynasty. It was natural for grovelling natures to
search in the gross soil of self-interest for the sustaining roots of the
tree beneath whose branches a nation found its shelter. What could they
comprehend of living fountains and of heavenly dews?

In May, 1568, the Emperor Maximilian had formally issued a requisition to
the Prince of Orange to lay down his arms, and to desist from all levies
and machinations against the King of Spain and the peace of the realm.
This summons he was commanded to obey on pain of forfeiting all rights,
fiefs, privileges and endowments bestowed by imperial hands on himself or
his predecessors, and of incurring the heaviest disgrace, punishment, and
penalties of the Empire.

To this document the Prince replied in August, having paid in the
meantime but little heed to its precepts. Now that the Emperor, who at
first was benignant, had begun to frown on his undertaking, he did not
slacken in his own endeavours to set his army on foot. One by one, those
among the princes of the empire who had been most stanch in his cause,
and were still most friendly to his person, grew colder as tyranny became
stronger; but the ardor of the Prince was not more chilled by their
despair than by the overthrow at Jemmingen, which had been its cause.
In August, he answered the letter of the Emperor, respectfully but
warmly. He still denounced the tyranny of Alva and the arts of Granvelle
with that vigorous eloquence which was always at his command, while, as