ssed the details of the
enterprise with the Spanish ambassador in Paris. At about the same time,
one Le Goth, a captive French officer, had been applied to by the Marquis
de Richebourg, on the part of Alexander of Parma, to attempt the murder
of the Prince. Le Goth had consented, saying that nothing could be more
easily done; and that he would undertake to poison him in a dish of eels,
of which he knew him to be particularly fond. The Frenchman was liberated
with this understanding; but being very much the friend of Orange,
straightway told him the whole story, and remained ever afterwards a
faithful servant of the states. It is to be presumed that he excused the
treachery to which he owed his escape from prison on the ground that
faith was no more to be kept with murderers than with heretics. Thus
within two years there had been five distinct attempts to assassinate the
Prince, all of them, with the privity of the Spanish government. A sixth
was soon to follow.

In the summer of 1584, William of Orange was residing at Delft, where his
wife, Louisa de Coligny, had given birth, in the preceding winter, to a
son, afterwards the celebrated stadholder, Frederic Henry. The child had
received these names from his two godfathers, the Kings of Denmark and of
Navarre, and his baptism had been celebrated with much rejoicing on the
12th of June, in the place of his birth.

It was a quiet, cheerful, yet somewhat drowsy little city, that ancient
burgh of Delft. The placid canals by which it was intersected in every
direction were all planted with whispering, umbrageous rows of limes and
poplars, and along these watery highways the traffic of the place glided
so noiselessly that the town seemed the abode of silence and
tranquillity. The streets were clean and airy, the houses well built, the
whole aspect of the place thriving.

One of the principal thoroughfares was called the old Delftstreet. It was
shaded on both sides by lime trees, which in that midsummer season
covered the surface of the canal which flowed between them with their
light and fragrant blossoms. On one side of this street was the "old
kirk," a plain, antique structure of brick, with lancet windows, and with
a tall, slender tower, which inclined, at a very considerable angle,
towards a house upon the other side of the canal. That house was the
mansion of William the Silent. It stood directly opposite the church,
being separated by a spacious courtyard from the stre