n, prevent his future wife from continuing in the
Augsburg Confession; that he would allow her to go to places where she
might receive the Augsburg sacraments; that in case of extreme need she
should receive them in her chamber; and that the children who might
spring from the marriage should be instructed as to the Augsburg
doctrines. As, however, continued the councillor, his highness the Prince
of Orange has, for various reasons, declined giving any such agreement in
writing, as therefore it had been arranged that before the marriage
ceremony the Prince should, in the presence of the bride and of the other
witnesses, make a verbal promise on the subject, and as the parties were
now to be immediately united in marriage, therefore the Elector had no
doubt that the Prince would make no objection in presence of those
witnesses to give his consent to maintain the agreements comprised in the
memorandum or note. The note was then read. Thereupon, the Prince
answered verbally. "Gracious Elector; I remember the writing which you
sent me on the 14th April. All the point: just narrated by the Doctor
were contained in it. I now state to your highness that I will keep it
all as becomes a prince, and conform to it." Thereupon he gave the
Elector his hand.--

What now was the amount and meaning of this promise on the part of the
Prince? Almost nothing. He would conform to the demands of the Elector,
exactly as he had hitherto said he would conform to them. Taken in
connexion with his steady objections to sign and seal any instrument on
the subject--with his distinct refusal to the Landgrave (through Knuttel)
to allow the Princess an evangelical preacher or to receive the
sacraments in the Netherlands--with the vehement, formal, and public
protest, on the part of the Landgrave, against the marriage--with the
Prince's declarations to the Elector at Dresden, which were satisfactory
on all points save the religious point,--what meaning could this verbal
promise have, save that the Prince would do exactly as much with regard
to the religious question as he had always promised, and no more? This
was precisely what did happen. There was no pretence on the part of the
Elector, afterwards, that any other arrangement had been contemplated.
The Princess lived catholically from the moment of her marriage, exactly
as Orange had stated to the Duchess Margaret, and as the Elector knew
would be the case. The first and the following children born of