ic of
Brunswick, or an Archduke of the Austrian house; although the opinion
held by most of the influential councillors was in favor of Don John of
Austria. In the interests of Philip and his despotism, nothing, at any
rate, could be more fatal than delay. In the condition of affairs which
then existed, the worst or feeblest governor would have been better than
none at all. To leave a vacancy was to play directly into the hands of
Orange, for it was impossible that so skilful an adversary should not at
once perceive the fault, and profit by it to the utmost. It was strange
that Philip did not see the danger of inactivity at such a crisis.
Assuredly, indolence was never his vice, but on this occasion indecision
did the work of indolence. Unwittingly, the despot was assisting the
efforts of the liberator. Viglius saw the position of matters with his
customary keenness, and wondered at the blindness of Hopper and Philip.
At the last gasp of a life, which neither learning nor the accumulation
of worldly prizes and worldly pelf could redeem from intrinsic baseness,
the sagacious but not venerable old man saw that a chasm was daily
widening; in which the religion and the despotism which he loved might
soon be hopelessly swallowed. "The Prince of Orange and his Beggars do
not sleep," he cried, almost in anguish; "nor will they be quiet till
they have made use of this interregnum to do us some immense grievance."
Certainly the Prince of Orange did not sleep upon this nor any other
great occasion of his life. In his own vigorous language, used to
stimulate his friends in various parts of the country, he seized the
swift occasion by the forelock. He opened a fresh correspondence with
many leading gentlemen in Brussels and other places in the Netherlands;
persons of influence, who now, for the first time, showed a disposition
to side with their country against its tyrants. Hitherto the land had
been divided into two very unequal portions. Holland and Zealand were
devoted to the Prince; their whole population, with hardly an individual
exception, converted to the Reformed religion. The other fifteen
provinces were, on the whole, loyal to the King; while the old religion
had, of late years, taken root so rapidly again, that perhaps a moiety of
their population might be considered as Catholic. At the same time, the
reign of terror under Alva, the paler, but not less distinct tyranny of
Requesens, and the intolerable excesses of the for