advancing more closely upon him of placing himself personally in the
hands of his creditors and making over his estates to their mercy
until the uttermost farthing should be paid. In his two campaigns
against Alva (1568 and 1572) he had spent 1,050,000 florins. He
owed the Elector Palatine 150,000 florins, the Landgrave 60,000,
Count John 670,000, and other sums to other individuals.]

During this wrangling, the country was exposed to the forces of Parma, to
the private efforts of the Malcontents, to the unpaid soldiery of the
states, to the armed and rebellious peasantry. Little heed was paid to
the admonitions of Count John, who was of a hotter temper than was the
tranquil Prince. The stadholder gave way to fits of passion at the
meanness and the insolence to which he was constantly exposed. He
readily recognized his infirmity, and confessed himself unable to
accommodate his irascibility to the "humores" of the inhabitants. There
was often sufficient cause for his petulance. Never had praetor of a
province a more penurious civil list. "The baker has given notice,"
wrote Count John, in November, "that he will supply no more bread after
to-morrow, unless he is paid." The states would furnish no money to pay
the, bill. It was no better with the butcher. "The cook has often no
meat to roast," said the Count, in the same letter, "so that we are often
obliged to go supperless to bed." His lodgings were a half-roofed, half-
finished, unfurnished barrack, where the stadholder passed his winter
days and evenings in a small, dark, freezing-cold chamber, often without
fire-wood. Such circumstances were certainly not calculated to excite
envy. When in addition to such wretched parsimony, it is remembered that
the Count was perpetually worried by the quarrels of the provincial
authorities with each other and with himself, he may be forgiven for
becoming thoroughly exhausted at last. He was growing "grey and
grizzled" with perpetual perplexity. He had been fed with annoyance,