t nor Hoorn would consent;
they would not be guilty of any act of disloyalty to their sovereign.
The result of the meeting was a great disappointment to Orange, and this
date marked a turning-point in his life. In concert with his brothers,
John and Lewis, he began to enter into negotiations with several of the
German Protestant princes for the formation of a league for the
protection of the adherents of the reformed faith in the Netherlands.
Now for the first time he severed his nominal allegiance to the Roman
Church, and in a letter to Philip of Hesse avowed himself a Lutheran.

During these same autumn months Philip furnished his sister with
considerable sums of money for the levying of a strong mercenary force,
German and Walloon. Possessed now of a body of troops that she could
trust, Margaret in the spring of 1567 took energetic steps to suppress
all insurrectionary movements and disorders, and did not scruple to
disregard the concessions which had been wrung from her on August 23.
The confederate nobles, satisfied with her promises, had somewhat
prematurely dissolved their league; but one of the most fiery and
zealous among them, John de Marnix, lord of Thoulouse, collected at
Antwerp a body of some 2000 Calvinists and attempted to make himself
master of that city. At Austruweel he was encountered (March 13) by a
Walloon force despatched by Margaret with orders to "exterminate the
heretics." Thoulouse and almost the whole of his following perished in
the fight. In the south at the same time the conventicles were
mercilessly suppressed and the preachers driven into exile.

Margaret now felt herself strong enough to demand that the stadholders
and leading nobles should, on pain of dismissal from their posts, take
an oath "to serve the king and to act for and against whomsoever His
Majesty might order." Egmont took the oath; Hoorn, Hoogstraeten and
Brederode declined to do so and resigned their offices. Orange offered
his resignation, but Margaret was unwilling to accept it and urged him
to discuss the matter first with Egmont and Meghem. The three nobles met
accordingly at Willebroek, April 2. William used his utmost powers of
persuasion in an attempt to convince Egmont that he was courting
destruction. But in vain. He himself was not to be moved from his
decision, and the two friends, who had worked together so long in the
patriot cause, parted, never to meet again. Orange saw that he was no
longer safe in the Ne