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XI it, they found Parma entrenched in an impregnable camp with an overwhelming force, and they were forced to retire. In the last extremity, William sent in a message promising succour, a promise which it was impossible for him to keep. Loud outcries were raised about treason, apathy, blundering, and the Landgrave's agent wrote home that "people everywhere ceased to trust him, and thought that the Prince must regret that he had ever left Holland at all. He had lost all authority in the Netherlands, after allowing so many thousands to be butchered. He cannot even withdraw with honour; he is not safe even in Antwerp, where his popularity is gone."

One after another, cities, provinces, and chiefs fell away. John wrote to Dillenburg that nearly every one but Lalain had deserted the Prince. But Lalain, Count of Rennenburg, one of his stoutest supporters, now made private terms, and was bought by Spain for money and a title. An anonymous letter was sent to the States-General accusing the Prince of treachery and personal aims. William took the letter from the hand of the clerk, who hesitated to read the libel, calmly read it aloud to them himself, as if it were an ordinary trifle, and then he proudly told them that he was ready to depart from them, if they desired it, and could believe the calumnies of which he was the butt. This was one of the darkest hours of his long agony; but he still toiled on, and henceforth he toiled on alone.

And now, the Spanish Cabinet, having finally realised that the Netherlands could not be crushed whilst Orange lived, and that no arts and no offers could bend or break his will, resorted to more systematic ways of compassing