hat William III had any complicity in this _execrable faict_, as it
was well styled by the new council-pensionary Fagel, there is not the
slightest evidence. He was absent from the Hague at the time and wholly
preoccupied with the sore necessities of the military position; and it
is said that he was much affected at hearing the dreadful news. But his
naturally cold and self-contained nature had been hardened in the school
of adversity during the long years of humiliation which had been imposed
upon him by John de Witt and his party. He had endured in proud patience
awaiting the hour when he could throw off the yoke, and now that it had
come he could not forgive. Under the plea that the number of those
implicated in the deed was so large that it was impossible to punish
them and thus stir up party passions at a time when the whole energies
of the nation were needed for the war, he took no steps to bring the
offenders to justice. Unfortunately for his reputation he was not
content with a neutral attitude, but openly protected and rewarded the
three chief offenders Tichelaer, Verhoef and Van Bankhem, all of them
men of disreputable character.

Thus two of the greatest statesmen and patriots that Holland has
produced, John van Oldenbarneveldt and John de Witt, both perished
miserably, victims of the basest national ingratitude; and it will ever
remain a stain upon the national annals and upon the memory of two
illustrious Princes of Orange, Maurice and William III, that these
tragedies were not averted.

* * * * *

CHAPTER XVIII

THE STADHOLDERATE OF WILLIAM III, 1672-1688

In the early summer of 1672, when William resolved to concentrate all
his available forces for the defence of Holland covered by its
water-line, the military situation was apparently hopeless. Had Turenne
and Luxemburg made a united effort to force this line at the opening of
the campaign the probability is that they would have succeeded. Instead
of doing so they expended their energies in the capture of a number of
fortified places in Gelderland, Overyssel and North Brabant; and in the
meantime the stadholder was week by week strengthening the weak points
in his defences, encouraging his men, personally supervising every
detail and setting an example of unshaken courage and of ceaseless
industry. He had at his side, as his field-marshal, George Frederick,
Count of Waldeck, an officer of experience and skill wh