Page:The silent prince - a story of the Netherlands (IA cu31924008716957).pdf/15

 bleeding but not killed, standing at bay and defying her hunters.”

But God's deliverer was at hand. Out of the gloomy background there rose a figure, at first indistinct, shadowy, but as the contest proceeded, becoming clearly defined. It was the figure of a man, who in this bigoted age loved and exercised tolerance in the affairs of conscience; a man, who to his latest breath contended that freedom of inquiry was an inalienable right of the human race; a man whose magnanimity and self-abnegation for the cause of freedom well deserved the double glory of exalted position and final martyrdom.

This man was William of Orange, the Silent Prince.