1577. At the same time the closest relations of confidence and
friendship sprang up between Orange and the well-known Calvinist writer
and leader, Philip de Marnix, lord of Sainte Aldegonde. This connection
with Sainte Aldegonde ensured for William the support of the Calvinists;
and secret agents of the prince were soon busily at work in the
different parts of the provinces promising armed assistance and
collecting levies for the raising of an invading force. Foremost among
these active helpers were Jacob van Wesenbeke, Diedrich Sonoy and Paul
Buys; and the chief scene of their operations were the provinces of
Holland and Zeeland, already distinguished for their zeal in the cause
of freedom. The amount of cash that was raised was, however, for some
time very small. There was goodwill in plenty, but the utter failure of
the prince's earlier efforts had made people despair.

These earlier efforts had indeed, on land, been disastrous, but they
had not been confined entirely to land operations. Orange, in his
capacity as a sovereign prince, had given _letters of marque_ to a
number of vessels under the command of the lord of Dolhain. These
vessels were simply corsairs and they were manned by fierce fanatical
sectaries, desperadoes inflamed at once by bitter hatred of the papists
and by the hope of plunder. These "Beggars of the Sea" (_Gueux de mer_),
as they were called, rapidly increased in number and soon made
themselves a terror in the narrow seas by their deeds of reckless daring
and cruelty. William tried in vain to restrain excesses which brought
him little profit and no small discredit. It was to no purpose that he
associated the lord of Lumbres in the chief command with Dolhain. Their
subordinates, William de Blois, lord of Treslong, and William de la
Marck, lord of Lumey, were bold, unscrupulous adventurers who found it
to their interest to allow their unruly crews to burn and pillage, as
they lusted, not only their enemies' ships in the open sea, but churches
and monasteries along the coast and up the estuaries that they infested.
The difficulty was to find harbours in which they could take refuge and
dispose of their booty. For some time they were permitted to use the
English ports freely, and the Huguenot stronghold at La Rochelle was
also open to them as a market. Queen Elizabeth, as was her wont, had no
scruple in conniving at acts of piracy to the injury of the Spaniard;
but at last, at the beginning of 1572,