to advocate the connexion. The Prince is said to have discovered
this double dealing, and to have found in it the only reasonable
explanation of the whole transaction. Moreover, the Duchess of Lorraine,
finding herself equally duped, and her own ambitious scheme equally
foiled by her unscrupulous cousin--who now, to the surprise of every one,
appointed Margaret of Parma to be Regent, with the Bishop for her prime
minister--had as little reason to be satisfied with the combinations of
royal and ecclesiastical intrigue as the Prince of Orange himself. Soon
after this unsatisfactory mystification, William turned his attentions to
Germany. Anna of Saxony, daughter of the celebrated Elector Maurice,
lived at the court of her uncle, the Elector Augustus. A musket-ball,
perhaps a traitorous one, in an obscure action with Albert of
Brandenbourg, had closed the adventurous career of her father seven years
before. The young lady, who was thought to have inherited much of his
restless, stormy character, was sixteen years of age. She was far from
handsome, was somewhat deformed, and limped. Her marriage-portion was
deemed, for the times, an ample one; she had seventy thousand rix dollars
in hand, and the reversion of thirty thousand on the death of John
Frederic the Second, who had married her mother after the death of
Maurice. Her rank was accounted far higher in Germany than that of
William of Nassau, and in this respect, rather than for pecuniary
considerations, the marriage seemed a desirable one for him. The man who
held the great Nassau-Chalons property, together with the heritage of
Count Maximilian de Buren, could hardly have been tempted by 100,000
thalers. His own provision for the children who might spring from the
proposed marriage was to be a settlement of seventy thousand florins
annually. The fortune which permitted of such liberality was not one to
be very materially increased by a dowry which might seem enormous to many
of the pauper princes of Germany. "The bride's portion," says a
contemporary, "after all, scarcely paid for the banquets and magnificent
festivals which celebrated the marriage. When the wedding was paid for,
there was not a thaler remaining of the whole sum." Nothing, then, could
be more puerile than to accuse the Prince of mercenary motives in seeking
this alliance; an accusation, however, which did not fail to be brought.

There were difficulties on both sides to be arranged before this marriage