e Netherlands, to proceed
against heretics. So Philip's duplicity was revealed and the die cast.
One thing was fortunate: the worst was known. Protests poured in, a
veritable flood--protests against all Inquisitorial methods in a land
accustomed to liberty--the prince, meantime, remaining moderate, to the
exasperation of the Protestants, whose blood boiled at the prospect of
an Inquisition in their midst and for their extermination. From Breda,
William watched evils take shape, his very calm giving him advantage in
forming accurate judgment of the magnitude of opposition on which he
might rely, concurring in a remonstrance drawn up in March of 1566; and
in the latter part of this month he went to a meeting of the Council at
Brussels, where he spoke frankly against the measures of the king,
urging moderation on this ground, "To see a man burn for his opinion
does harm to the people, and does nothing to maintain religion;" and in
the ensuing April, Brederode presented the remonstrance, Margaret the
Regent replying she could not--_i.e._, dared not--suspend the
Inquisition. Thus were the famous "Beggars" ushered into history.
Prince William, nothing revolutionary in character, still counseled
quiet till all his hopes were frustrated and all his fears realized,
when, on August 18th, in an annual festival of Antwerp Catholicism, a
tumult arose over the wooden Virgin, and rebellion against Philip II
was actually inaugurated; for from this hour the Confederates armed and
strengthened themselves against the policy and duplicity of Margaret
the regent and Philip the king, having accurate knowledge of the
character of each. Orange is still on the side of submission, and
Motley, than whom there is no better authority, thinks September the
month of his considering seriously forcibly resisting Philip's
encroachments; for now, through a trusted messenger, he puts on guard
Count Egmont, whose sanguine temperament leads him still to put
reliance in Philip's fair words. Evidently we have come to the
beginning of the end. Erelong, William of Orange will be a rebel.

The second period of William's life, stretching from Henry II's
revelation to the prince's death, is divisible into two parts--part
first reaching to the outbreak at Antwerp, in which, though on the
defensive, he was yet actually loyal; part second beginning with the
Antwerp outbreak, when he saw Philip clearly, and as a patriot, and
loving the Netherlands more than he