Chapter I: Dillenburg

Life in the ancestral castle of the German Nassaus at Dillenburg was very different from what the life in Brussels, Antwerp, or Breda had been.

The old Countess of Nassau, Juliana of Stollberg, was the head of this household, and with her lived Count John, his wife the Landgravine Elisabeth, and their family; here, too, resided the unmarried daughters of the house, Juliana, and Magdalena—lately betrothed to Wolfgang, Count of Hohenlohe; while the married daughters, Anna, the Countess of Nassau Saarbruck; and Elisabeth, Countess of Solms Braunfels; Catherine, Countess of Schwarzburg; and the Countess van der Berg were continually coming and going on visits to their old home.

There was not much money and no magnificence at Dillenburg when the eldest son, practically an exile and a fugitive, arrived with his sickly peevish wife and his train of a hundred and fifty—very shorn splendour for the Prince of Orange, but a considerable strain on the resources of Count John.

But the welcome was none the less passionately sincere in love and pride, and William was treated by his family with the same deference as if he had been still the favourite of Charles V, or the greatest man in the Netherlands.

His brothers, Adolphus and Henry—a youth who had just left College—returned eagerly to Dillenburg to join him, and Count Louis left Brederode, who was revolving one scheme after another that came to nothing, and hastened to Germany.

Meanwhile William waited for news from the Netherlands, for news of the proceedings of Alva, and for answers to the letters that he had sent to the German Protestant Princes—the Elector of Saxony and the Landgrave of Hesse.

Now at last he had begun to reap the fruit of that foresight which had induced him to engage in his second marriage despite the lively disapproval of Philip.

That marriage had been as disastrous as his worst enemies could have hoped, but at least it had given him some claim on the friendship of Anne's relations.

William had also asked the old Landgrave Philip to send him a Lutheran preacher, who was immediately and joyfully dispatched, and the Prince of Orange occupied the first leisure he had known for years in studying the New Testament and listening to the exposition of the tenets of Martin Luther.

But Alva, Philip's swift and sure right hand, had lost no time in striking him one blow that hit both his pride and his affections.

His eldest son, the Count of Buren, was beguiled by Alva from school in Louvain (where William had left him, relying on the high and ancient privileges of the University) and sent to Spain, where he had gone a willing captive, flattered and caressed, for he was a child and knew nothing of his father nor of Philip.

Thus the first move was to Alva, and the Prince, bitterly wounded and outraged, had had to admit that his sagacity had been at fault; what foolishness to rely on any charters or privileges where Alva and Philip were concerned.

He took this grief silently and applied himself to long and careful preparations for the part he intended to take upon himself. He was hours closeted with Count John, hours with the Lutheran minister; his private table was covered with papers on which theological arguments were mingled with numerical calculations—estimates of the worth of his now available estates, estimates even of the value of his jewels and plate, rude maps of the Netherlands, lists of the towns with their several strengths, rough draughts of letters to the Emperor, to the King of France, to the Order of the Golden Fleece.

He was in correspondence with great persons in England and in close touch with the Huguenots of France.

In a few months after his departure from the Netherlands he had already in his hands the threads of a widespread league against Philip, which his industry, his high prestige, his astute statesmanship had accomplished single-handed.

Nor was he wantonly rushing into rebellion against the man to whom he had sworn loyalty.

Philip had in everything justified the suspicions of the Prince.

One of Alva's first acts had been to arrest Egmont and Hoorne, whom he had before caressed and flattered; Montigny and Berghen were prisoners in Spain. Alva had seized the keys of every city in the Netherlands. Margaret was the mere shadow of authority, and Alva was absolute.

He seemed to have but two objects—blood and gold: the blood of the heretics, that was to smoke to heaven to please the nostrils of the Lord; and the gold of the heretics, which was to flow to Spain to please the eyes of the King.

In both ways were the Netherlands to be drained, of life and of treasure; and so Alva hoped to avenge the outrages which had been offered to both spiritual and temporal power.

The estates of the Prince of Orange had been threatened with confiscation, and he himself, together with Montigny, Culemburg, Van der Berg, and Hoogstraaten had been summoned to appear within fourteen days before the Council of Troubles, an arbitrary tribunal established by Alva which had already earned the title of the Council of Blood.

The Prince of Orange, therefore, was not organizing a rebellion against a pacific monarch who was prepared to leave him in peace if he remained in exile; he but struck at one who was striking at him, his friends, his country, with blind, fanatical fury, a cunning treachery, a narrow cruelty that was almost inconceivable.

And in striking at William of Orange, Philip had roused more than was in his nature to believe in, as a man intent on killing little helpless animals may carelessly wound a sleeping lion, whose presence he had no wit to guess at.

So William, silently, made his preparations against Spain; so the tranquil autumn and the vintage passed, and the spring came gaily back to Dillenburg.

The Nassau women employed themselves in household tasks, eagerly talking together, eagerly helping the men whenever might be, fervently attending the plain Lutheran service in the plain Lutheran chapel, and listening reverently to the impassioned sermons of the preacher.

These days were sweet to Rénèe le Meung; she knew them as only a prelude to great trouble, perhaps great agony, yet for the moment she was happy.

The women treated her kindly, she felt one of a family, not part of the mechanism of a household; there was no need to keep such wearing watch on Anne, who was helpless for evil here. Every one she spoke to was of her own faith; there was no longer in her ears the scoffs and insults of Papists, no longer horrible tales of torture and death repeated on every side.

Here were peace and kindness and affection. And if Anne writhed under the confinement, the monotony, the simplicity, alternating between bitter melancholy and passionate fury, Rénèe found the atmosphere as refreshing to her parched soul as water to dry lips.

And her greatest joy—her secret, almost holy joy—was in the attitude of the Prince; for in him she discerned now, beyond all doubt, the destined champion of her country and her faith.

It was in the early spring that Count Louis came to Dillenburg. He stopped one moment to receive his mother's warm salute, then went straight to the Prince.

William was in a room which was fitted up as a library, a small and modest chamber near the chapel.

The books on the simple shelves were mostly theological works collected by William's father, treatises and pamphlets in Latin and French, written when the first heat of fierce controversy had raged over the schism in the Church.

Before the pointed Gothic window was a desk of heavy black wood, piled with papers and furnished with a large brass ink-pot and sand-dish and a tall silver hourglass.

In the centre was a large and worn Bible.

There was no furniture in the room beyond a few chairs covered with faded tapestry and the shelves of books; the April sun, fine and clear, filled every corner of the room and showed the dust on the books, on the floor, and in crevices of the shelves.

William rose instantly from his desk and embraced his brother, then led him to the deep window-seat, which was filled with red cushions from which the sun had taken the brightness.

Neither of these young men, once so splendid, were any longer magnificent. William wore a suit of dark blue camlet with a ruff of plain needlework, and no jewels beyond a yellow topaz signet ring; Louis was habited in a brown riding suit and boots dusty to the knees: he had lately lost something of his bloom and freshness, and his brilliant eyes were tired and shadowed; but his firm-featured, beardless face, framed in the graceful blonde curls, retained the old ardent charm.

Round his neck hung a silver "beggar" medal and a tiny silver cup.

"Any news?" asked William, gazing at him affectionately and still retaining his hand.

"Some news, yes. At Cleves I met the Spanish post—Berghen is dead," replied Louis in a moved voice.

"Dead?" echoed the Prince. "So soon?" And his face saddened as he reflected that this was the first sacrifice from among the Netherland nobles who had dared to disobey Philip. "Dead?—and in Spain!"

"In a Spanish prison," amended Louis. "They say he died of home-sickness and disappointment. God knows! At least it is certain he is dead, and there seems little hope for Montigny. No one believes he will ever leave Spain. His poor wife is wearing out the altar stones with kneeling to her saints! May they comfort her!"

"Why would he go!" exclaimed William. "He was infatuate, as all of them. And Egmont?"

"There is no hope for Egmont; he and Hoorne are surely doomed," replied the Count sombrely. "The Countess Egmont and her children will be utterly ruined, for every thaler he possesses is held confiscate."

"And this is the reward of his loyalty," remarked William grimly. "To what end did he stoop to play the persecutor at Valenciennes! Yet he was always sanguine."

"Even after Alva came, and others had warned him, he would not believe. He had a sweet letter from the King, written after the Duke sailed and complimenting him on his loyalty—he put all faith in that."

"Ah, Philip!" cried William, with a deep accent of hatred.

"It was a trap," continued the Count—"a trap for all of us. Granvelle and Spinosa planned it with Alva."

"I know," said the Prince. "The design is to utterly subjugate the Provinces, execute all those who were against Granvelle, re-establish the Inquisition, exterminate all heretics, and make the Netherlands subject appanages of the Spanish Crown as are the Italian states—that is Philip's policy. Mine," he added, with a certain passion, "will be to prevent it."

"Surely you can, surely you will," said Louis, with enthusiasm and reverence.

"Yet do not think me sanguine," answered the Prince gravely. "I know what I undertake. I know the might of Spain. Egmont might have done something, but that chance is past. Oh, I am not sanguine! I think before this struggle is over Granvelle may count all his enemies among the dead. Berghen has gone—Montigny, Egmont, Hoorne are doomed—nay, are we not all doomed?"

"Doomed?" repeated Louis quietly.

"By Philip. He has judged and condemned us, and his vengeance has many faces. If you go on, Louis, go on as I shall, as a man devoted to a cause almost hopeless—as one under sentence of death."

"It does not frighten me," answered the young Count simply. "I love the cause and I love the commander!"

He kissed his brother's hand.

"It is some time," he added, "since I entreated to be your lieutenant."

William smiled.

"Where is your 'beggars'' league now, Louis? Drowned as it was born, in Brederode's wassail bowl! What did those men prove? Good fellows, but none of them of any worth save Culemburg and Ste Aldegonde."

Louis flushed.

"But I have some men gathered together," he said. "A poor little army, it is true, but something."

"That is your work, not Brederode's," answered William.

"Poor Brederode!" exclaimed the Count generously. "He was brave and loyal, and now all his schemes have failed. I think he will die of it—I left him creeping to Germany, a disappointed man."

"Leave him; he is happier than some better men," said the Prince. "And to our affairs. I too have been enrolling an army—a poor thing too, refugees, mercenaries—but something."

The two brothers looked at each other with a keen and flashing glance.

"You will invade the Netherlands?" asked Louis eagerly.

"If I can get the money, I will," answered the Prince, and he spoke quite simply, as if it was not in the least a wonderful feat to even contemplate—this marching against the finest army in the world with a handful of raw recruits and mercenaries.

"Ah, the money!" sighed Louis. He too was of an heroic temper, he too took the tremendous task simply; but he was daunted by the mention of what had completely checked his own gallant efforts.

"We need," said William, speaking with a precision which showed that he had well studied the subject, "at least two hundred thousand crowns. There was," he added, with a smile, "a time when I could have raised as much from my own estates—but not now!"

"It is not so much," remarked Louis hopefully.

"Half," continued William, leaning forward and taking some papers from under the great Bible, "I have already had promised me from my agents in Antwerp, Amsterdam, Leyden, Haarlem, and other great towns; some has been promised by the refugee merchants in England."

"And for the rest?"

"Culemburg, Van der Berg, and Hoogstraaten will help—the House of Nassau must make up the balance."

Louis sat thoughtful, his eyes narrowed while he made a mental calculation.

"I could raise ten thousand," he said at length.

William added the sum to the list he held in his hand.

"John will help," he remarked. "And I, I will do what I can. Would we now had the money we once spent on pleasure—yet those were golden days, and I regret them not."

He rose and paced up and down the room, holding his papers.

"There are the Huguenots under De Villars—they would do something. Then I think many would join us. Alva is so hated."

Louis remained in the window-seat, gazing out on the golden April day which was now fading to a close.

"I will do whatever you tell me," he said, with a submission that was almost childlike from one so brilliant in achievement.

A single bell sounded through the stillness of the castle.

"It is for the evening service," said William. "Will you go?"

Tired and dusty as he was, the Count assented.

"And you?" he asked.

William put his papers carefully away under the Bible.

"In my mother's house I may honour my mother's faith," he said.

The two young men went down to the chapel together.