h showed
itself in a way to which even Barbara and her party could not deny a
certain degree of admiration. True, the nature of the country aided the
rebels like an ally. Mortal warriors could not contend against wind and
storm. But he who from without directed the defence here, who had issued
the order to break through the dikes, and then with shameful effrontery
had founded in the scarcely rescued city a university which was to
nurture the spirit of resistance in the minds of the young men, was
again the Prince of Orange; and who else than he, his shrewdness and
firmness, robbed Requesens of gratitude for his mildness and the success
of his honest labours?

But how much easier was the part of the leader of the enemy, who in
Brussels had escaped the fate of Egmont, than the King's kindly disposed
governor! When Barbara chanced to hear the men of the people talking
with each other, and they spoke of "Father William," they meant the
Prince of Orange; and with what abuse, both verbally and in handbills,
King Philip and the Spanish Government were loaded!

To Barbara, as well as to the members of her party, William of Orange,
whom she often heard called the "Antichrist" and "rebel chief," was
an object of hatred. Now he frustrated the kind Requesens's attempt at
mediation, and it was also his fault that two provinces had publicly
revolted from the Holy Church. The Protestant worship of God was now
exercised as freely there as in Ratisbon. Like William of Orange, most
of the citizens professed the doctrine of Calvin, but there was no lack
of Lutherans, and the clergyman whose sermons attracted the largest
congregations was Erasmus Eckhart, Barbara's old acquaintance, Dr.
Hiltner's foster-son, who during the Emperor Charles's reign had come to
the Netherlands as an army chaplain, and, amid great perils, was said to
have lured thousands from the Catholic Church. Deeply as her sentiments
rebelled, here, too, Barbara had become his preserver; for when the
Bloody Council had sentenced him to the gallows, she had succeeded, with
great difficulty, through her manifold relations to the heads of the
Spanish party, in obtaining his pardon. A grateful letter from Frau
Sabina Hiltner had abundantly repaid her for these exertions.

The boldness with which William of Orange, who was himself the most
dangerous heretic and rebel, protested that he was willing to grant
every one full religious liberty, had no desire to injure the Catholic