y his fourth, Louisa de Coligny,
one son, Frederic William, afterwards stadholder of the Republic in her
most palmy days. The Prince was entombed on the 3rd of August, at Delft,
amid the tears of a whole nation. Never was a more extensive, unaffected,
and legitimate sorrow felt at the death of any human being.

The life and labors of Orange had established the emancipated
common-wealth upon a secure foundation, but his death rendered the union
of all the Netherlands into one republic hopeless. The efforts of the
Malcontent nobles, the religious discord, the consummate ability, both
political and military, of Parma, all combined with the lamentable loss
of William the Silent to separate for ever the southern and Catholic
provinces from the northern confederacy. So long as the Prince remained
alive, he was the Father of the whole country; the Netherlands--saving
only the two Walloon provinces--constituting a whole. Notwithstanding the
spirit of faction and the blight of the long civil war, there was at
least one country; or the hope of a country, one strong heart, one
guiding head, for the patriotic party throughout the land. Philip and
Granvelle were right in their estimate of the advantage to be derived
from the Prince's death, in believing that an assassin's hand could
achieve more than all the wiles which Spanish or Italian statesmanship
could teach, or all the armies which Spain or Italy could muster. The
pistol of the insignificant Gerard destroyed the possibility of a united
Netherland state, while during the life of William there was union in the
policy, unity in the history of the country.

In the following year, Antwerp, hitherto the centre around which all the
national interests and historical events group themselves, fell before
the scientific efforts of Parma. The city which had so long been the
freest, as well as the most opulent, capital in Europe, sank for ever to
the position of a provincial town. With its fall, combined with other
circumstances, which it is not necessary to narrate in anticipation, the
final separation of the Netherlands was completed. On the other hand, at
the death of Orange, whose formal inauguration as sovereign Count had not
yet taken place, the states of Holland and Zealand reassumed the
Sovereignty. The commonwealth which William had liberated for ever from
Spanish tyranny continued to exist as a great and flourishing republic
during more than two centuries, under the successive s