e, and who deserved this triumph as
he did not stain his entrance with blood. Ghent, Ypres, and Oudenarde
submitted and received garrisons. Gueldres was now almost entirely
cleared of the rebels and reduced to obedience by the Count of Megen.
In Friesland and Groningen the Count of Aremberg had eventually the same
success; but it was not obtained here so rapidly or so easily, since the
count wanted consistency and firmness, and these warlike republicans
maintained more pertinaciously their privileges, and were greatly
supported by the strength of their position. With the exception of
Holland all the provinces had yielded before the victorious arms of the
duchess. The courage of the disaffected sunk entirely, and nothing was
left to them but flight or submission.

RESIGNATION OF WILLIAM OF ORANGE.

Ever since the establishment of the Guesen league, but more perceptibly
since the outbreak of the Iconoclasts, the spirit of rebellion and
disaffection had spread so rapidly among all classes, parties had become
so blended and confused, that the regent had difficulty in
distinguishing her own adherents, and at last hardly knew on whom to
rely. The lines of demarcation between the loyal and the disaffected
had grown gradually fainter, until at last they almost entirely
vanished. The frequent alterations, too, which she had been obliged to
make in the laws, and which were at most the expedients and suggestions
of the moment, had taken from them their precision and binding force,
and had given full scope to the arbitrary will of every individual whose
office it was to interpret them. And at last, amidst the number and
variety of the interpretations, the spirit was lost and the intention of
the lawgiver baffled. The close connection which in many cases
subsisted between Protestants and Roman Catholics, between Gueux and
Royalists, and which not unfrequently gave them a common interest, led
the latter to avail themselves of the loophole which the vagueness of
the laws left open, and in favor of their Protestant friends and
associates evaded by subtle distinctions all severity in the discharge
of their duties. In their minds it was enough not to be a declared
rebel, not one of the Gueux, or at least not a heretic, to be authorized
to mould their duties to their inclinations, and to set the most
arbitrary limits to their obedience to the king. Feeling themselves
irresponsible, the governors of the provinces, the civi