Wurtzburg had consumed "eighty hogsheads of Rhenish wine and twenty great
casks of beer." The expense of the states' envoys were twenty-four
thousand guldens. The Archbishop of Cologne had expended forty thousand
thalers. The deliberations were, on the whole, excessively detrimental
to the cause of the provinces, "and a great personage" wrote to the
states-general, that the King had been influenced by no motive save to
cause dissension. This was an exaggeration, for his Majesty would have
been well pleased to receive the whole of the country on the same terms
which had been accepted by the Walloons. Meantime, those southern
provinces had made their separate treaty, and the Netherlands were
permanently dissevered. Maestricht had fallen. Disunion and dismay had
taken possession of the country.

During the course of the year other severe misfortunes had happened to
the states. Treachery, even among the men who had done good service to
the cause of freedom, was daily showing her hateful visage. Not only
the great chieftains who had led the Malcontent Walloon party, with the
fickle Aerschot and the wavering Havre besides, had made their separate
reconciliation with Parma, but the epidemic treason had mastered such
bold partisans as the Seigneur de Bours, the man whose services in
rescuing the citadel of Antwerp had been so courageous and valuable. He
was governor of Mechlin; Count Renneberg was governor of Friesland. Both
were trusted implicitly by Orange and by the estates; both were on the
eve of repaying the confidence reposed in them by the most venal treason.

It was already known that Parma had tampered with De Bours; but Renneberg
was still unsuspected. "The Prince," wrote Count John, "is deserted by
all the noblemen; save the stadholder of Friesland and myself, and has no
man else in whom he can repose confidence." The brothers were doomed to
be rudely awakened from the repose with regard to Renneberg, but