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WIL by the patriots, and the Spanish admiral fell into their hands. The French king made overtures to Orange with the view of securing the throne of Poland for the duke of Anjou; and even Philip offered, if the imperial crown were conferred upon him, to tolerate the exercise of the reformed religion in the Netherlands, and to restore the prince of Orange "and all his accomplices" to their former possessions and dignities. Alva, who had now become unacceptable to his master, as he had long been abhorred by all classes in the Netherlands, was recalled at this juncture, and was succeeded in his office by Don Luis Zanega-y-Requescens, commander of the order of Malta. The new governor immediately reversed the policy of his predecessor, repealed his obnoxious taxes, dissolved the Council of Blood, and published a general amnesty. But he was obliged to continue the war which Alva had begun for the reduction of the revolted cities of Holland and Zeeland. He failed, however, in his attempt to relieve Middleburg, which was closely besieged and taken by Orange, while the patriotic fleet gained a complete victory over the Spaniards (29th January, 1574). Another Spanish fleet was attacked in the Scheldt, forty of the vessels captured, and many more sunk; and the town of Leyden, after a protracted siege, in which the most fearful sufferings were endured, was saved by the desperate expedient of cutting the dykes. On the other hand, two of the prince's brothers, Counts Louis and Henry, were defeated and killed in the battle of Mook. In the following year (1575) Philip consented that a conference should be held with the patriots at Breda; but as he persisted in his demand that "the heretics should be expelled from the maritime provinces," a reconciliation was found to be impossible. Holland and Zeeland, now entirely protestant, united in offering their government to Orange, who accepted it under the name of regent for the king. The death of Requescens at this juncture created great confusion and disturbance. The council of state which assumed the government became divided into factions. The Spanish troops mutinied on account of the arrears of their pay, took the towns of Maestricht, Alost, and Antwerp by storm, and committed the most frightful atrocities. The prince took advantage of these disorders to obtain possession of the important city of Ghent. A congress of representatives from the various provinces was held in this place on the 10th of October, 1576, by whom was prepared a treaty of confederacy (termed the "Pacification of Ghent"), between the maritime and the inland provinces, by which they became bound mutually to assist each other in expelling the Spaniards, and established perfect religious toleration and freedom of worship. Shortly after (9th January, 1577) a meeting of noblemen, ecclesiastics, and other influential persons, was held at Brussels, at which a compact, called the "Union of Brussels," was formed in support of the "Pacification of Ghent;" and the new regent, the famous Don John of Austria, who arrived at this period, after a conference with certain deputies appointed by the states, agreed to a treaty called the "Perpetual Edict," securing to the inland provinces all their demands. But there was no real intention to abandon the intolerant policy of Philip; and Don John, as soon as he was fairly installed in office, took steps to recover all the prerogatives he had surrendered. His secret intentions were discovered by means of some intercepted letters, and the states-general, enraged at his treachery, resolved to disown his authority, and conferred the office of governor of Brabant on Orange, who, after eleven years of proscription, again entered Brussels, where he was received with acclamation as the father of his country. The seventeen provinces were for a brief space again combined in a new Union of Brussels; but the infant confederation was soon shattered into pieces by the bloody battle of Gemblours (31st January, 1778), in which the army of the states was completely defeated. The prince of Orange and the states-general removed from Brussels to Antwerp, while Don John followed up his victory by reducing Louvain, Nivelles, and other towns in Flanders. But in the midst of his successes he suddenly died on the 1st October, and was succeeded by the duke of Parma, the best and ablest of all Philip's representatives in the Netherlands. Through his sagacious and energetic efforts the inland provinces, in which the majority of the people still adhered to the Romish faith, were at length all brought under subjection to Spain.

The progress which Parma had made, not only in conquering, but in conciliating the Walloon or southern provinces, decided William to carry into effect a plan which he had long cherished, and to unite the maritime provinces into a distinct government. Accordingly, on the 29th of January, there was signed at Utrecht a treaty of union between the five provinces of Holland, Zeeland, Guelderland, Utrecht, and Friesland, by which they formed themselves into an independent republic. This confederation having been afterwards joined by the two provinces of Overyssel and Groningen, obtained the name of the Seven United Provinces. But while labouring to secure this important object, William had by no means relinquished the struggle for the independence of the whole Netherlands. Acting as lieutenant-general under the Archduke Matthias, whom the Roman catholic nobles had appointed governor, he superintended the administration of the southern provinces, and exerted his utmost efforts to engage England and France and the protestant states of Germany on the side of the Netherlands. The contest against the king of Spain had hitherto been carried on without explicitly renouncing allegiance to him; but now, at a meeting of the states-general at Antwerp, Philip was formally deposed as a tyrant, the Netherlands were declared a free and independent state, and the vacant sovereignty was conferred upon the duke of Anjou, brother to the French king. At the same time William was appointed stadtholder of Holland, Zeeland, and Friesland. The independence of the northern provinces was now firmly secured, and if the life of William had been prolonged the southern provinces might also in time have been delivered from the Spanish yoke. But the career of the prince was now drawing to a close. Granvelle and other counsellors of the Spanish king had long counselled the assassination of their dreaded and hated adversary, and early in 1580 Philip had issued a proclamation offering a reward of twenty-five thousand golden crowns, with a patent of nobility and a pardon for all past offences, to any one who should assassinate the prince of Orange. Five attempts to kill him, in one of which he was left for dead, were made before the last and successful one. At length a clerk named Balthazar Gerard—half fanatic and whole villain—who for years had been revolving the deed, after consulting certain Jesuits and laying his scheme before the duke of Parma, succeeded under a false name and by false pretences in obtaining access to the prince's presence, and on the 10th of July, 1584, shot him in the breast as he went from the dinner table to his own apartment. He exclaimed, "God have mercy on me and on this poor people," and instantly expired. The assassin was seized and put to death by the most horrible tortures. But his claim to the promised reward was cordially acknowledged by Philip, and large estates were bestowed on Gerard's father and mother, in commutation of the stipulated blood-money.

The prince of Orange was the first statesman of his age. He was endowed with remarkable sagacity and quickness of conception, a profound knowledge of human nature, great skill in the government of men, invincible courage, firmness, and presence of mind, and indefatigable industry. In military genius he was one of the foremost captains in Europe, and "no man ever possessed a larger share of the soldier's great virtues, constancy in disaster, devotion to duty and hopefulness in defeat." The rock in the ocean, "tranquil amid raging billows," was the favourite emblem by which his friends expressed their sense of his firmness. "He possessed a ready eloquence," says Mr. Motley, "sometimes impassioned, oftener argumentative, always rational. His influence over his audience was unexampled in the annals of that country or age. . . . He knew how to reach both the mind and the heart of his hearers. His orations, whether extemporaneous or prepared —his written messages to the states-general, to the provincial authorities, to the municipal bodies—his private correspondence with men of all ranks, from emperors and kings down to secretaries, and even children—all show an easy flow of language, a fulness of thought, a power of expression rare in that age—a fund of historical allusion, a considerable power of imagination, a warmth of sentiment, a breadth of view, a directness of purpose, a range of qualities, in short, which would in themselves have stamped him as one of the master minds of his century, had there been no other monument to his memory than the remains of his spoken or written eloquence. . . . He possessed also a rare perception of human character, together with an iron memory, which never lost a face, a place, or an event, once seen or known. He read the minds, even the faces of men, like printed books. The subtlety and adroitness with which he detected the schemes of his enemies, and converted them into so many additional weapons for his own cause, can never be too often studied. Of his moral qualities, the most prominent was