ccordingly, a
body of twelve leading Remonstrants with Simon Episcopius at their head
took their seats at a table facing the assembly. Episcopius made a
long harangue in Latin occupying nine sessions. His eloquence was,
however, wasted on a court that had already prejudged the cause for
which he pleaded. After much wrangling and many recriminations Bogerman
ordered the Remonstrants to withdraw. They did so only to meet in an
"anti-synod" at Rotterdam at which the authority of the Dordrecht
assembly to pronounce decisions on matters of faith was denied.
Meanwhile the Contra-Remonstrant divines at Dordrecht during many weary
sessions proceeded to draw up a series of canons defining the true
Reformed doctrine and condemning utterly, as false and heretical, the
five points set forth in the Remonstrance. On May 1 the Netherland
confession and the Heidelberg catechism were unanimously adopted, as
being in conformity with Holy Scripture, and as fixing the standard of
orthodox teaching. The Synod was dissolved eight days later. The final
session was the 154th; and this great assembly of delegates from many
lands, the nearest approach to a general council of the Protestant
churches that has ever been held, came to a close amidst much festivity
and no small congratulation. No time was lost in taking action by the
dominant party against their opponents. Two hundred Remonstrant
preachers were driven into exile; and the congregations were treated
with the same spirit of intolerance as had hitherto been the lot of the
Catholics, and were forbidden the exercise of public worship.

After the Advocate's death, except for the persecution directed against
the Remonstrant party, the course of public affairs went on smoothly.
Maurice, who by the death of his brother, Philip William, had in
February, 1618, become Prince of Orange, was virtually sovereign in the
United Provinces. His name appeared in treaties with eastern potentates
and in diplomatic despatches, just as if he were a reigning monarch; and
the people of the Netherlands were even at times spoken of as his
subjects. But Maurice never cared to trouble himself about the details
of politics, and he now left the management of affairs in the hands of a
few men that he could trust, notably in those of Francis van Aerssens
(henceforth generally known as lord of Sommelsdijk) and Reinier Pauw,
the influential burgomaster of Amsterdam. Aerssens had shown himself
spiteful and vindictive in