will be necessary to submit, rather than to
lose everything."

Don John was in earnest; unfortunately he was not aware that the Prince
was in earnest also. The crusader, who had sunk thirty thousand paynims
at a blow, and who was dreaming of the Queen of Scotland and the throne
of England, had not room in his mind to entertain the image of a patriot.
Royal favors, family prosperity, dignities, offices, orders, advantageous
conditions, these were the baits with which the Governor angled for
William of Orange. He did not comprehend that attachment to a
half-drowned land and to a despised religion, could possibly stand in the
way of those advantageous conditions and that brilliant future. He did
not imagine that the rebel, once assured not only of pardon but of
advancement, could hesitate to refuse the royal hand thus amicably
offered. Don John had not accurately measured his great antagonist.

The results of the successive missions which he despatched to the Prince
were destined to enlighten him. In the course of the first conversation
between Leoninus and the Prince at Middelburg, the envoy urged that Don
John had entered the Netherlands without troops, that he had placed
himself in the power of the Duke of Aerschot, that he had since come to
Louvain without any security but the promise of the citizens and of the
students; and that all these things proved the sincerity of his
intentions. He entreated the Prince not to let slip so favorable an
opportunity for placing his house above the reach of every unfavorable
chance, spoke to him of Marius, Sylla, Julius Caesar, and other promoters
of civil wars, and on retiring for the day, begged him to think gravely
on what he had thus suggested, and to pray that God might inspire him
with good resolutions.

Next day, William informed the envoy that, having prayed to God for
assistance, he was more than ever convinced of his obligation to lay the
whole matter before the states, whose servant he was. He added, that he
could not forget the deaths of Egmont and Horn, nor the manner in which
the promise made to the confederate nobles by the Duchess of Parma, had
been visited, nor the conduct of the French monarch towards Admiral
Coligny. He spoke of information which he had received from all quarters,
from Spain, France, and Italy, that there was a determination to make war
upon him and upon the states of Holland and Zealand. He added that they
were taking their measures in conseque