assau's command at Arnhem and of Brederode's from
Vianen, besides a portion of the regular garrison of the place, had
accordingly been assembled without beat of drum, before half past three
in the morning, and were now drawn up on the market-place or Neu. At
break of day the Prince himself appeared on horseback surrounded by his
staff on the Neu or Neude, a large, long, irregular square into which the
seven or eight principal streets and thoroughfares of the town emptied
themselves. It was adorned by public buildings and other handsome
edifices, and the tall steeple of St. Martin's with its beautiful
open-work spire, lighted with the first rays of the midsummer sun, looked
tranquilly down upon the scene.

Each of the entrances to the square had been securely guarded by
Maurice's orders, and cannon planted to command all the streets. A single
company of the famous Waartgelders was stationed in the Neu or near it.
The Prince rode calmly towards them and ordered them to lay down their
arms. They obeyed without a murmur. He then sent through the city to
summon all the other companies of Waartgelders to the Neu. This was done
with perfect promptness, and in a short space of time the whole body of
mercenaries, nearly 1000 in number, had laid down their arms at the feet
of the Prince.

The snaphances and halberds being then neatly stacked in the square, the
Stadholder went home to his early breakfast. There was an end to those
mercenaries thenceforth and for ever. The faint and sickly resistance to
the authority of Maurice offered at Utrecht was attempted nowhere else.

For days there had been vague but fearful expectations of a "blood bath,"
of street battles, rioting, and plunder. Yet the Stadholder with the
consummate art which characterized all his military manoeuvres had so
admirably carried out his measure that not a shot was fired, not a blow
given, not a single burgher disturbed in his peaceful slumbers. When the
population had taken off their nightcaps, they woke to find the awful
bugbear removed which had so long been appalling them. The Waartgelders
were numbered with the terrors of the past, and not a cat had mewed at
their disappearance.

Charter-books, parchments, 13th Articles, Barneveld's teeth, Arminian
forts, flowery orations of Grotius, tavern talk of van Ostrum, city
immunities, States' rights, provincial laws, Waartgelders and all--the
martial Stadholder, with the orange plume in his hat and the sword o