much less--as was falsely rumored, and
to his great annoyance--put himself at their head.[711] His brother, it
is true, and some of his particular friends, had joined the league. But
Louis declares that he did so without the knowledge of William. When the
latter, a fortnight afterwards, learned the existence of the league, he
expressed his entire disapprobation of it.[712] He even used his
authority, we are told, to prevent the confederates from resorting to
some violent measures, among others the seizure of Antwerp, promising
that he would aid them to accomplish their ends in a more orderly
way.[713] What he desired was, to have the states-general called
together by the king. But he would not assume a hostile attitude, like
that of the confederates, to force him into this unpalatable
measure.[714] When convened, he would have had the legislature, without
transcending its constitutional limits, remonstrate, and lay the
grievances of the nation before the throne.

This temperate mode of proceeding did not suit the hot blood of the
younger confederates. "Your brother," writes Hames to Louis, "is too
slow and lukewarm. He would have us employ only remonstrance against
these hungry wolves; against enemies who do nothing in return but
behead, and banish, and burn us. We are to do the talking, and they the
acting. We must fight with the pen, while they fight with the
sword."[715]

The truth was, that William was not possessed of the fiery zeal which
animated most of the Reformers. In his early years, as we have seen, he
had been subjected to the influence of the Protestant religion at one
period, and of the Roman Catholic at another. If the result of this had
been to beget in him something like a philosophical indifference to the
great questions in dispute, it had proved eminently favorable to a
spirit of toleration. He shrunk from that system of persecution which
proscribed men for their religious opinions. Soon after the arrival of
the despatches from Segovia, William wrote to a friend: "The king
orders, not only obstinate heretics, but even the penitent, to be put to
death. I know not how I can endure this. It does not seem to me that
such measures are either Christian-like or practicable."[716] In another
letter he says: "I greatly fear these despatches will drive men into
rebellion. I should be glad, if I could, to save my country from ruin,
and so many innocent persons from slaughter. But when I say anything in
the co