Marjorie Bowen

“ The Prince came down slowly, a slender figure in a cross-cut doublet of a peacock colour, a mantle of red and black fur; he carried his cap and switch under his arm, and was fastening his fringed gauntlets with a gold thread.
"Your Highness has soon come to the scene of your triumph," said Barlaymont.
William turned serene eyes on him.
"Ah, Baron, I do not triumph," he said, half sadly.
"I think Your Highness does when you step into the place of the man you have cast down."
"It was not I," replied William, "it was the Netherlands that would not endure the Cardinal." ”

“ Then, seeing his expression of marvel, her face became burning with painful red, and she turned her head quickly away.
"It must be to Your Highness as if your dog should turn to speak to you," she said humbly. "I entreat you to pass on and forget."
"No," replied William, with perfect graciousness. "It is not my way to either pass on or forget. Tell me what you mean."
"I cannot," said Rénèe. "My heart is very full, and prompts me to foolishness. I am a heretic, and therefore life cannot be pleasant to me."
"But you are safe here," answered the Prince gently. ”

“ William smiled at the weakness of this.
"If Philip were to send every soldier he possesses to the Netherlands to force the Inquisition and the decrees of the Council of Trent by the sword, not one of these people would change his faith."
"You speak as one too favourable to heresy," cried the Count.
"I speak as one knowing well these heretics and the power of the faith they hold."
"Would we could extirpate that cursed faith," exclaimed Egmont impatiently, "which, like a foul weed in a fair garden, has brought confusion and misery where there was order and peace!" ”

“ Rénèe went on packing.
"Your Highness will certainly go," she answered quietly.
"No," said Anne violently. "I was a fool to leave Brussels—but I will not leave the Netherlands. Why should I go into exile? Where is all my state? It has melted like snow. There is no one to look after me; I can hardly get a drink of beer or wine when I want it. He never gives me any money—has he thrown it all away on this miserable beggar war? I will not be the wife of a ruined man—am I to live on wind and eat my hands and feet? By God, I had better have married a simple German Count than this great Prince." ”

“ The Prince's face hardened as he gazed at the ominous darkness faintly sprinkled with the Spanish camp fires; he thought of Egmont and Hoorne, Brederode, and Berghen—of Adolphus, and his own stolen son, his own insulted name, his own confiscated property; and against Philip and Philip's red right hand—the hard old man crouching there with his talons deep in the flesh of the Netherlands—his whole soul went out in wrath and defiance and a hatred that was like a sensation of triumph and pleasure. ”

“ The Countess noticed this and flushed.
"What have you read that displeases you?" she asked.
"What can I read that will please me?" flashed Anne. "What good news can come from a man ruined by his own folly?"
"You speak of my son," returned the Countess, trembling.
"I speak of the man who has reduced me to beggary," cried the Princess passionately. "And I will use my tongue as I list; it is you who do not use the respect you should—all of you—little nobles that you are, to the Elector Maurice's daughter." ”

“ Truly the Countess did not know; her own years had been so full that she could not picture an empty existence.
"You cannot understand," added Rénèe, "what it is to mourn the loss of what you never had."
"You will love again," said the Countess, whose outlook was eminently practical and sane, "or at least you will take a husband, and then your life will be full."
"Some women love once only, alas for them!" answered Rénèe, "perhaps it is a foolishness, but one cannot change one's heart." ”

“ The weaver of Tournay burnt to death over a slow fire for casting the wafer out of the priest's hand found his God as true as Philip finds his—for to the last he called on Him and even smiled. I wonder," added the Prince thoughtfully, "if Philip in torment would find support in his faith!"
"It is all terrible," answered Hélène d'Espinoy in a shaken voice, "and these people have power—they will fight, they will resist. It will not be so easy to subdue them."
"Easy enough for Alva," thought William. "The Duchess is only helpless because she is without money and without men." ”

“ Louis handed the ring and the violet gem to Duprès, who packed them into little cases of cedar wood.
"You do not look as if your thoughts were foolish," he replied, with more gravity than she had ever associated with him.
"Nay, I think she is a very wise lady, noble seigneur," said the alchemist.
"Your thoughts, then?" smiled Louis of Nassau.
Rénèe's deep-set indifference to all things overcame her momentary confusion.
"I am too good a Protestant to rejoice at this marriage," she replied quietly, "and my thoughts were all sad ones, noble Count, and did not in any way touch your high policies." ”

“ The waiting-woman was herself so remote in heart from all this festivity which she stood in the centre of, so far in spirit from all the excitement by which she was surrounded, that these people seemed to her in a strange way lifeless—splendid puppets like those the tailor had brought on the polished wood gallows; and when she looked at the bride she was sorry, in a vague way, that Anne was not more lovely, more gracious, more sweet. The long-stifled romance of her own youth told her the central figure of all this pageantry should be more worthy. ”

“ I tell you he is doomed—if he stays he is doomed as surely as any poor peasant who has looked impudently at an image."
"These are the words of a rebel!" exclaimed Mansfeld.
"For the true service of the King I am always ready," returned William, "but to Alva, Granvelle, and the Inquisition call me rebel if you will—for I do protest against them and their authority and all attempts to force the faith of these people, which attempts are in defiance of laws and privileges and wholly against God."
"Nay," said Egmont, "it is His cause, as any priest will tell you." ”

“ Louis, still seated at the table, glanced at his brother wistfully.
"You take my news coldly," he said in a tone of disappointment. "I thought that you would be rejoiced to hear that there was this league to protect the rights of the nobles and the liberties of the people."
"It was no news to me," answered William. "I knew your designs. You are all young and ardent and reckless—God keep you all."
Louis bit his lip and drank the last drop of yellow wine that lay like liquid amber in his sparkling crystal glass. ”

“ The frightened agitated women ran hither and thither with cordials and essences and all the details of the resplendent wedding-gown with which their mistress had to be vested.
Rénèe, a little bewildered by that sight of the Prince of Orange, went about her duties quietly; she believed she knew the cause of Anne's untimely tears. Deep beneath the Princess's vanities, ignorances, and arrogances lay a woman's intuitions; these warned her, sometimes in a manner not to be ignored, that she was crooked, undesirable, and now they told her that the Prince's kind glance had not been that of a lover. ”

“ William thought of the tumultuous days in Antwerp when Hoogstraaten, and he only, had stood faithfully and bravely by his side—thought of all the long, loyal, sincere friendship that went back to the old gay times of feast and joust, hawking and hunting—the times when neither Anthony de Lalaing nor he had ever dreamt of such an hour as this. He thought, too, of the Countess at Dillenburg—waiting—already in mourning for one brother dead, and one doomed to die—waiting for the news—the news which would be that of a third bereavement ”

“ Rénèe did not see the towers of Leipsic; her mind spread the world before her like a great map painted with bright pictures—great tyrants slaughtering, burning, oppressing; poor people flying homeless, dying unnoticed—everywhere wrong, violence, cruelty—and no one to rise against it, no one to defy such a man as King Philip.
Every one was for himself, his private gain; even the Protestant Princes of Germany who had stood for the faith of Martin Luther, they put their own convenience first, as in this marriage which the Elector had urged forward for his personal interest. ”

“ Anne was mollified.
"Would you not like a husband, rich and handsome?" she asked, trying to provoke the flattery of the other's envy.
"I?" asked Rénèe, in genuine surprise. "Who will ever marry me?"
Anne smiled.
"Perhaps some day I shall find some one for you. How old are you?"
"Twenty-five, Your Grace."
"That is not very young! Nearly ten years older than I am! Is it not very fine to be married at sixteen? Would you not like to be married soon?"
"I would never marry any but a Lutheran," replied Rénèe calmly. ”

“ In the people is the strength, the ardour, the force; these nobles dance and jest and brawl and spend, but do they believe, do they care—would they die for their God? All in the hands of Philip, all conforming to Church and State, all bowing the neck to the Regent and Peter Titelmann with his Holy Inquisition."
"You do some wrong," said William. "Montigny and Berghen have refused to enforce the Inquisition in their provinces, and all the nobles have protested to His Majesty against the dicta of the Council of Trent becoming law in the Netherlands." ”

“ There were no more knights, there was no one to stand forward for the weak and the miserable, the humble and the helpless; the Reformed Faith had produced saints and martyrs but not yet a champion or a protector.
"They all bow to circumstance, these great princes and nobles," thought Rénèe; "there is not one of them who would endanger the tenth part of his possessions for the cause of the poor Protestants, for liberty, for country—not one."
She leant her sick head against the mullions and closed her eyes; life seemed so long, so futile, the world so wrong, so ugly. ”

“ The picture fascinated Rénèe, it was so serene, so pleasant, so far removed from horror or disgust, terror or pain, that it might make a tired soul long to die that way, calm and smiling in a daisied meadow that was but one step from the paradise where a martyr's crown was already being plaited by the angels and saints.
There were martyrs now; men, women, and children as pious, as steadfast as any of the early Christians whom heathens slaughtered and to whom altars were set up all over Europe, died every day in the Netherlands. ”

“ Alva is a poor financier, and he will not obtain much aid from Philip, who looks to see gold pouring from the Netherlands—not into them. To exhaust Alva's resources is but a question of time."
"But we?" asked Louis. "Can we wait? If this first attempt fails, can we go on?"
"We can go on till we die," answered William. "There is nothing to stop us but the failure of ourselves. There are plenty of men and plenty of money in the world—many who hate Spain and who love the Reformed Faith. We do not venture in a little cause nor a foolish one." ”

“ Adolphus glanced at the banners which were being displayed in the still air, all of them glittering with gold and silk which traced, he knew, patriotic and bold inscriptions; then he watched with interest his own banner being brought up the hill by a galloping horseman.
Louis was straining his eyes down the darkling road where Aremberg was almost due.
"He will wait for Meghem, who cannot be a day's march behind," he said anxiously; "when he sees how we are entrenched he will skirmish and wait."
"God be entreated," said Adolphus, "that he attacks us." ”

“ Rénèe was beautiful with the opulent beauty of her country, but she ignored it, and she had no lover, so Anne was content to ignore it too. Besides, her own vanity was too great for her to be aware how her own unattractiveness was heightened by the loveliness of the graceful Fleming, with her crimson-brown hair and eyes, her rose complexion, her white skin, and exact features, though she was so plain in her dress, so grave in her manner, so always and completely in the background that many besides her mistress might have discounted this beauty that lacked all flash and allure. ”

“ Already Titelmann, Granvelle, the Regent, the King, were rejoicing that they were tearing up by the roots the seed that Martin Luther had planted; already some of the most splendid and prosperous towns in Europe were being devastated with executions, fines, confiscations, and the spectacle of tortured men, women, and children flung living into the flames with Marot's hymns on their lips and the light of undiminished faith in their eyes. ”

“ I cannot read the heavens as I could!"
"There is no need to look in the heavens for my portents," said Louis, as if speaking to himself, "they are blazed abroad before the eyes of men very clearly."
The golden dusk faded and darkness closed over Heiliger Lee, soft clouds passed over the setting sun which pierced them with level rays like spears; the dead men in the morass were hidden, the moving light of lanterns crossed and recrossed the victorious camp. ”

“ The two knights on the one horse, Hoogstraaten in his buff and gold riding suit, his black velvet cap with the long heron's feather fastened by an emerald, his violet mantle; Brederode in the tawny damask satin, Flanders lace, scarlet points, and silk hose, in which he had danced nearly all through the night, were at once recognized by the crowd and cheered and applauded as heartily as the Cardinal had been hissed and execrated. ”

“ She suggested this plan to the Countess of Nassau one heavy November day when they walked in the castle gardens to catch the faint chill glimpse of the winter sun.
"You, too, are eager to leave us!" exclaimed the Countess, who could not forget Anne's fierce denunciations of the dulness of the life at Dillenburg.
"No, Madame, no," said Rénèe eagerly; "but I must work—in some way I must justify my life—or die."
Juliana pressed her hand kindly.
"I know, my child, I know. There is indeed nothing but idleness for you here where we women are too many already."
"It is terrible to be a woman!" ”

“ From her high window, round which the pigeons flew, she would wait for a glimpse of those who came to wait on him: Egmont, the Stadtholder of Artois and Flanders, as magnificent a lord as William himself, and of almost as proud and ancient descent; Count Hoorne, another great seigneur, but a sombre and gloomy man; Brederode, handsome, reckless, usually inflamed with wine; Count Hoorne's brother, the Seigneur de Montigny; and De la Marck, the Seigneur de Lumey.
And Rénèe soon perceived that these great nobles were all animated with one object, and that object hatred of Cardinal Granvelle. ”

“ But Cardinal Granvelle has already ferreted out many whose names were thereon."
"I did not know of this," exclaimed John.
"Lock it in your heart," said the Prince. "I was bred a heretic," he added, with a smile.
"You have always seemed one of us to me," returned the brother simply, "and never a true Papist."
"Oh, I am a good Catholic," said William, looking out of the window, "but I do not think any man should lose his life for his faith, nay, nor his property nor his honours. I believe in tolerance, John, and there are few of that mind." ”

“ Are you not a Lutheran and the Elector Maurice's daughter, and do you hope to stand in Alva's good graces?"
A slight tremor shook Anne.
"It does not please me to go to Dillenburg," she muttered.
William flushed.
"You remind me that I have no other house to offer you," he said. "I must entreat your patience, Anne."
"Let me go to Cologne," answered the Princess. "I think you could well spare me."
"It is not possible. Our separation would cause a scandal, and is there need to put our affairs in every man's mouth? And at this juncture of my affairs I cannot well afford two households." ”

“ Count Egmont will not go again."
"That will not save him if he has incurred Spanish wrath," remarked William, with a sigh.
Montigny's wife rose with an agitated movement.
"What will happen?" she asked. "He will tell me nothing—Your Highness will be kinder, and tell me what will happen?"
She stood like a child before him, with her childish request on her lips and her little hands clasped on her white silk bodice.
"If I could tell!" smiled the Prince. "All is a confusion: the Regent is bewildered; she has no power to enforce her authority—the King is silent." ”

“ Why should he wed Fräulein Anne?" cried another damsel, wearily seating herself. "Not for her beauty, nor her money——"
"For their 'reasons of State,'" quoted Rénèe, "and also because he does not know her. This will prove an ugly marriage. He does not look a man to suffer a curst wife."
"Perhaps she will be sweeter now," replied the other.
"There is no sweetness in her," said a third, gathering up the bunches of lavender, allspice leaves, rosemary, and orris-root that were to be laid among the bride's clothes in the long carved caskets.
"How my head aches!" said Rénèe. ”