rn generations were hanging, was to be fought out,
before the eyes of all Christendom, on the plain of the Netherlands.

Orange was willing to lay down his arms if he could receive security for
the Reformed worship. He had no desire to exterminate the ancient
religion, but he meant also to protect the new against extermination.
Such security, he felt, would never be granted, and he had therefore
resolutely refused to hearken to Don John, for he was sure that peace
with him was impossible. The letters now produced by De Selles confirmed
his positions completely. The King said not a word concerning the
appointment of a new governor-general, but boldly insisted upon the
necessity of maintaining the two cardinal points--his royal supremacy,
and the Catholic religion upon the basis adopted by his father, the
Emperor Charles the Fifth.

This was the whole substance of his communication: the supremacy of
royalty and of papacy as in the time of Charles the Fifth. These
cabalistic words were repeated twice in the brief letter to the estates.
They were repeated five times in the instructions furnished by his
Majesty to De Selles. The letter and the instructions indeed contained
nothing else. Two simples were offered for the cure of the body politic,
racked by the fever and convulsion of ten horrible years--two simples
which the patient could hardly be so unreasonable as to reject--unlimited
despotism and religious persecution. The whole matter lay in a nut-shell,
but it was a nut-shell which enclosed the flaming edicts of Charles the
Fifth, with their scaffolds, gibbets, racks, and funeral piles. The
Prince and the states-general spurned such pacific overtures, and
preferred rather to gird themselves for the combat.

That there might be no mistake about the matter, Don John, immediately
after receiving the letter, issued a proclamation to enforce the King's
command. He mentioned it as an acknowledged fact that the states-general
had long ago sworn the maintenance of the two points of royal and
Catholic supremacy, according to the practice under the Emperor Charles.
The states instantly published an indignant rejoinder, affirming the
indisputable truth, that they had sworn to the maintenance of the Ghent
Pacification, and proclaiming the assertion of Don John an infamous
falsehood. It was an outrage upon common sense, they said, that the Ghent
treaty could be tortured into sanctioning the placards and the
Inquisition, evils whic