that the gentle-mindedness of Philip had been exhibited in the massacre
of a hundred thousand Netherlanders in various sieges and battles, and in
the murder, under the Duke of Alva alone, of twenty thousand human beings
by the hangman.

They liked not such divine right nor such gentle-mindedness. They
recognised no duty on their part to consent to such a system. Even the
friendly King of Denmark sent a legation for a similar purpose, which was
respectfully but very decidedly allowed to return as it came; but the
most persistent in schemes of interference for the purpose of putting an
end to the effusion of blood in the Netherlands was Sigismund of Poland.
This monarch, who occupied two very incompatible positions, being
sovereign at once of fanatically Protestant Sweden and of orthodox
Poland, and who was, moreover, son-in-law of Archduke Charles of Styria
whose other daughter was soon to be espoused by the Prince of Spain--was
personally and geographically interested in liberating Philip from the
inconvenience of his Netherland war. Only thus could he hope to bring
the Spanish power to the rescue of Christendom against the Turk.
Troubles enough were in store for Sigismund in his hereditary northern
realms, and he was to learn that his intermarriage with the great
Catholic and Imperial house did not enable him to trample out
Protestantism in those hardy Scandinavian and Flemish regions where it
had taken secure root. Meantime he despatched, in solemn mission to the
republic and to the heretic queen, a diplomatist whose name and whose
oratorical efforts have by a caprice of history been allowed to endure to
our times.

Paul Dialyn was solemnly received at the Hague on the 21st July.
A pragmatical fop, attired in a long, magnificent Polish robe, covered
with diamonds and other jewels, he was yet recognised by some of those