om the town, and installed an entirely new board, with Gerard
Proninck, called Deventer, for chief burgomaster, who was a Brabantine
refugee just arrived in the Province, and not eligible to office until
after ten years' residence.

It was not unnatural that the Netherlanders, who remembered the scenes of
bloodshed and disorder produced by the memorable attempt of the Duke of
Anjou to obtain possession of Antwerp and other cities, should be
suspicious of Leicester. Anjou, too, had been called to the Provinces by
the voluntary action of the States. He too had been hailed as a Messiah
and a deliverer. In him too had unlimited confidence been reposed, and he
had repaid their affection and their gratitude by a desperate attempt to
obtain the control of their chief cities by the armed hand, and thus to
constitute himself absolute sovereign of the Netherlands. The inhabitants
had, after a bloody contest, averted the intended massacre and the
impending tyranny; but it was not astonishing that--so very, few years
having elapsed since those tragical events--they should be inclined to
scan severely the actions of the man who had already obtained by
unconstitutional means the mastery of a most important city, and was
supposed to harbour designs upon all the cities.

No, doubt it was a most illiberal and unwise policy for the inhabitants
of the independent States to exclude from office the wanderers, for
conscience' sake, from the obedient Provinces. They should have been
welcomed heart and hand by those who were their brethren in religion and
in the love of freedom. Moreover, it was notorious that Hohenlo,
lieutenant-general under Maurice of Nassau, was a German, and that by the
treaty with England, two foreigners sat in the state council, while the
army swarmed with English, Irish, end German officers in high command.
Nevertheless, violently to subvert the constitution of a Province, and to
place in posts of high responsibility men who were ineligible--some whose
characters were suspicious, and some who were known to be dangerous, and
to banish large numbers of respectable burghers--was the act of a despot.

Besides their democratic doctrines, the Leicestrians proclaimed and
encouraged an exclusive and rigid Calvinism.

It would certainly be unjust and futile to detract from the vast debt
which the republic owed to the Geneva Church. The reformation had entered
the Netherlands by the Walloon gate. The earliest and most eloquent