“By all laws, rights, and privileges, let him be deposed,” replied the States.
And the king’s seals were broken.
And the sun shown on land and sea, gilding the ripened ears, mellowing the grape, casting pearls on every wave, the adornment of the bride of the Netherlands, Liberty.
Then the Prince of Orange, being at Delft, was stricken down by a fourth assassin, with three bullets in his breast. And he died, following his motto: “Calm amid the wild waves.”
His enemies said of him that to thwart King Philip, and not hoping to rule over the Southern Low Countries, which were Catholic, he had offered them by a secret treaty to Monseigneur Monsieur Sa Grande Altesse of Anjou. But Anjou was not born to beget the babe Belgium upon Liberty, who loveth not perverse amours.
And Ulenspiegel left the fleet with Nele.
And the fatherland Belgium groaned beneath the yoke, fast bound by traitors.
IX
They were then in the month of the ripened grain; the air was heavy, the wind was warm: the reapers, both men and women, could gather in at their ease in the fields, under the free sky, upon a free soil, the corn they had sown.