which remained for nearly two centuries in
that service, and were always to be found in the very forefront of the
fighting throughout the great war of Liberation.

On March 4, 1576, Requesens died; and in the considerable interval
that elapsed before the arrival of his successor, the outlook for the
patriot cause became distinctly brighter. The Estates of Holland and
Zeeland met at Delft (April 25, 1576); and the assembly was noteworthy
for the passing of an Act of Federation. This Act, which was the work of
Orange, bound the two provinces together for common action in defence of
their rights and liberties and was the first step towards that larger
union, which three years later laid the foundations of the Dutch
Republic. By this Act sovereign powers were conferred upon William; he
was in the name of the king to exercise all the prerogatives of a ruler.
It required all his influence to secure the insertion of articles (1)
extending a certain measure of toleration to all forms of religious
worship that were not contrary to the Gospel, (2) giving authority to
the prince in case of need to offer the Protectorate of the federated
provinces to a foreign prince. Orange knew only too well that Holland
and Zeeland were not strong enough alone to resist the power of Spain.
His hopes of securing the support of the other provinces, in which
Catholics were in the majority, depended, he clearly saw, on the
numerous adherents to the ancient faith in Holland and Zeeland being
protected against the persecuting zeal of the dominant Calvinism of
those provinces. In any case--and this continued to be his settled
conviction to the end of his life--the actual independence of the whole
or any portion of the Netherlands did not seem to him to lie within the
bounds of practical politics. The object for which he strove was the
obtaining of substantial guarantees for the maintenance of the ancient
charters, which exempted the provinces from the presence of foreign
officials, foreign tribunals, foreign soldiery and arbitrary methods of
taxation. As Philip had deliberately infringed all those privileges
which he had sworn to maintain, it was the duty of all patriotic
Netherlanders to resist his authority, and, if resistance failed to
bring redress, to offer the sovereignty with the necessary restrictions
to some other prince willing to accept it on those conditions and
powerful enough to protect the provinces from Spanish attack. In order
to gras