paralyzed, and his sword rusted irrevocably in its sheath. "The people
here," he wrote, "are bewitched by the Prince of Orange. They love him,
they fear him, and wish to have him for their master. They inform him of
everything, and take no resolution without consulting him."

While William was thus directing and animating the whole nation with his
spirit, his immediate friends became more and more anxious concerning the
perils to which he was exposed. His mother, who had already seen her
youngest-born, Henry, her Adolphus, her chivalrous Louis, laid in their
bloody graves for the cause of conscience, was most solicitous for the
welfare of her "heart's-beloved lord and son," the Prince of Orange.
Nevertheless, the high-spirited old dame was even more alarmed at the
possibility of a peace in which that religious liberty for which so much
dear blood had been, poured forth should be inadequately secured.
"My heart longs for certain tidings from my lord," she wrote to William,
"for methinks the peace now in prospect will prove but an oppression for
soul and conscience. I trust my heart's dearly-beloved lord and son will
be supported by Divine grace to do nothing against God and his own soul's
salvation. 'Tis better to lose the temporal than the eternal." Thus
wrote the mother of William, and we can feel the sympathetic thrill which
such tender and lofty words awoke in his breast. His son, the ill-
starred Philip, now for ten years long a compulsory sojourner in Spain,
was not yet weaned from his affection for his noble parent, but sent
messages of affection to him whenever occasion offered, while a less
commendable proof of his filial affection he had lately afforded, at the
expense of the luckless captain of his Spanish guard. That officer
having dared in his presence to speak disrespectfully of his father, was
suddenly seized about the waist by the enraged young Count, hurled out of
the window, and killed stone-dead upon the spot. After this exhibition
of his natural feelings, the Spanish government thought it necessary to