When the burgomaster had left, Captain Martin called Ned in.
“Now, you are going as a volunteer, Ned, and for a time, at any rate, there must be no question of pay; you are giving your services and not selling them. In the first place you must procure proper attire, in which to present yourself to the prince; you must also purchase a helmet, breast and back pieces, with sword and pistols. As for money, I shall give you a purse with sufficient for your present needs, and a letter which you can present to any of the merchants in the seaports with whom we have trade, authorizing you to draw upon me, and praying them to honour your drafts. Do not stint yourself of money, and do not be extravagant. Your needs will be small, and when serving in a garrison or in the field you will, of course, draw rations like others. I need not give you a list of the merchants in the various towns, since you already know them, and have been with me at many of their places of business.
“In regard to your actions, I say to you do not court danger, but do not avoid it. The cause is a good one, and you are risking your life for it; but remember also that you are an only son, and there are none to fill your place if you fall. Therefore be not rash; keep always cool in danger, and if there is a prospect of escape seize it promptly. Remember that your death can in no way benefit Holland, while your life may do so; therefore do not from any mistaken sense of heroism throw away your life in vain defence, when all hope of success is over, but rather seek some means of escape by which, when all is lost, you can manage to avoid the vengeance of the Spaniards. I fear that there will be many defeats before success can be obtained, for there is no union among the various states or cities.
“Holland and Zeeland alone seem in earnest in the cause, though Friesland and Guelderland will perhaps join heartily; but these provinces alone are really Protestant, in the other the Catholics predominate, and I fear they will never join heartily in resistance to Spain. How this narrow strip of land by the sea is to resist all the power of Spain I cannot see; but I believe in the people and in their spirit, and am convinced that sooner than fall again into the grasp of the Inquisition they will open the sluices and let the sea in over the country they have so hardly won from it, and will embark on board ship and seek in some other country that liberty to worship God in their own way that is denied them here.”
It was not necessary to purchase many articles of clothing, for the dress of the people of Holland differed little from that of the English. Ned bought a thick buff jerkin to wear under his armour, and had little difficulty in buying steel cap, breast and back piece, sword and pistols; for the people of Holland had not as yet begun to arm generally, and many of the walls were defended by burghers in their citizen dress, against the mail clad pikemen of Spain.
Three days later Ned took a tearful farewell of his family, and set sail in a small vessel bound for Rotterdam, where the Prince of Orange at present was. The voyage was made without adventure, and upon landing Ned at once made his way to the house occupied by the prince. There were no guards at the gate, or any sign of martial pomp. The door stood open, and when Ned entered a page accosted him and asked his business.
“I have letters for the prince,” he said, “which I pray you to hand to him when he is at leisure.”
“In that case you would have to wait long,” the page replied, “for the prince is at work from early morning until late at night. However, he is always open of access to those who desire to see him, therefore if you will give me the name of the writer of the letter you bear I will inform him, and you can then deliver it yourself.” A minute later Ned was shown into the presence of the man who was undoubtedly the foremost of his age.
Born of a distinguished family, William of Orange had been brought up by a pious mother, and at the age of twelve had become a page in the family of the Emperor Charles. So great was the boy's ability, that at fifteen he had become the intimate and almost confidential friend of the emperor, who was a keen judge of merit.
Before he reached the age of twenty-one he was named commander in chief of the army on the French frontier. When the Emperor Charles resigned, the prince was appointed by Philip to negotiate a treaty with France, and had conducted these negotiations with extreme ability. The prince and the Duke of Alva remained in France as hostages for the execution of the treaty. Alva was secretly engaged in arranging an agreement between Philip and Henry for the extirpation of Protestantism, and the general destruction of all those who held that faith. The French king, believing that the Prince of Orange was also in the secret, spoke to him one day when out hunting freely on the subject, and gave him all the details of the understanding that had been entered into for a general massacre of the Protestants throughout the dominions of France and Spain.
The Prince of Orange neither by word or look indicated that all this was new to him, and the king remained in ignorance of how completely he had betrayed the plans of himself and Philip. It was his presence of mind and reticence, while listening to this astounding relation, that gained for the Prince of Orange the title of William the Silent. Horror struck at the plot he had discovered, the prince from that moment threw himself into the cause of the Protestants of the Netherlands, and speedily became the head of the movement, devoting his whole property and his life to the object. So far it had brought him only trials and troubles.
His estate and that of his brothers had been spent in the service; he had incurred enormous debts; the armies of German mercenaries he had raised had met with defeat and ruin; the people of the Netherlands, crushed down with the apathy of despair, had not lifted a finger to assist the forces that had marched to their aid. It was only when, almost by an accident, Brill had been captured by the sea beggars, that the spark he had for so many years been trying to fan, burst into flame in the provinces of Holland and Zeeland.
The prince had been sustained through his long and hitherto fruitless struggle by a deep sense of religion. He believed that God was with him, and would eventually save the people of the Netherlands from the fate to which Philip had doomed them. And yet though an ardent Protestant, and in an age when Protestants were well nigh as bigoted as Catholics, and when the idea of religious freedom had scarce entered into the minds of men, the prince was perfectly tolerant, and from the first insisted that in all the provinces over which he exercised authority, the same perfect freedom of worship should be granted to the Catholics that he claimed for the Protestants in the Catholic states of the Netherlands.
He had not always been a Protestant. When appointed by Philip stadtholder of Holland, Friesland, and Utrecht he had been a moderate Catholic. But his thoughts were but little turned to religious subjects, and it was as a patriot and a man of humane nature that he had been shocked at the discovery that he had made, of the determination of the kings of France and Spain to extirpate the Protestants. He used this knowledge first to secretly urge the people of the Netherlands to agitate for the removal of the Spanish troops from the country; and although he had secret instructions from Philip to enforce the edicts against all heretics with vigour, he avoided doing so as much as was in his power, and sent private warnings to many whom he knew to be in danger of arrest.