the Netherlands were
permanently dissevered. Maestricht had fallen. Disunion and dismay had
taken possession of the country.

During the course of the year other severe misfortunes had happened to
the states. Treachery, even among the men who had done good service to
the cause of freedom, was daily showing her hateful visage. Not only the
great chieftains who had led the Malcontent Walloon party, with the
fickle Aerschot and the wavering Havre besides, had made their separate
reconciliation with Parma, but the epidemic treason had mastered such
bold partisans as the Seigneur de Bours, the man whose services in
rescuing the citadel of Antwerp had been so courageous and valuable. He
was governor of Mechlin; Count Renneberg was governor of Friesland. Both
were trusted implicitly by Orange and by the estates; both were on the
eve of repaying the confidence reposed in them by the most venal treason.

It was already known that Parma had tampered with De Bours; but Renneberg
was still unsuspected. "The Prince," wrote Count John, "is deserted by
all the noblemen; save the stadholder of Friesland and myself, and has no
man else in whom he can repose confidence." The brothers were doomed to
be rudely awakened from the repose with regard to Renneberg, but
previously the treason of a less important functionary was to cause a
considerable but less lasting injury to the national party.

In Mechlin was a Carmelite friar, of audacious character and great
eloquence; a man who, "with his sweet, poisonous tongue, could ever
persuade the people to do his bidding." This dangerous monk, Peter Lupus,
or Peter Wolf, by name, had formed the design of restoring Mechlin to the
Prince of Parma, and of obtaining the bishopric of Namur as the reward of
his services. To this end he had obtained a complete mastery over the
intellect of the bold but unprincipled De Bours. A correspondence was
immediately opened between Parma and the governor, and troops were
secretly admitted into the city. The Prince of Orange, in the name of the
Archduke and the estates, in vain endeavoured to recal the infatuated
governor to his duty. In vain he conjured him, by letter after letter, to
be true to his own bright fame so nobly earned. An old friend of De
Bours, and like himself a Catholic, was also employed to remonstrate with
him. This gentleman, De Fromont by name, wrote him many letters; but De
Bours expressed his surprise that Fromont, whom he had always conside