Meantime the wedding had been fixed to take place on Sunday, the 24th August, 1561. This was St. Bartholomew's, a nuptial day which was not destined to be a happy one in the sixteenth century. The Landgrave and his family declined to be present at the wedding, but a large and brilliant company were invited. The King of Spain sent a bill of exchange to the Regent, that she might purchase a ring worth three thousand crowns, as a present on his part to the bride. Beside this liberal evidence that his opposition to the marriage was withdrawn, he authorized his sister to appoint envoys from among the most distinguished nobles to represent him on the occasion. The Baron de Montigny, accordingly, with a brilliant company of gentlemen, was deputed by the Duchess, although she declined sending all the governors of the provinces, according to the request of the Prince. The marriage was to take place at Leipsic. A slight picture of the wedding festivities, derived entirely from unpublished sources, may give some insight into the manners and customs of high life in Germany and the Netherlands at this epoch.
The Kings of Spain and Denmark were invited, and were represented by special ambassadors. The Dukes of Brunswick, Lauenburg, Mecklenburg, the Elector and Margraves of Brandenburg, the Archbishop of Cologne, the Duke of Cleves, the Bishops of Naumburg, Meneburg, Meissen, with many other potentates, accepted the invitations, and came generally in person, a few only being represented by envoys. The town councils of Erfurt, Leipsic, Magdeburg, and other cities, were also bidden. The bridegroom was personally accompanied by his brothers John, Adolphus, and Louis; by the Burens, the Leuchtenbergs, and various other distinguished personages.
As the electoral residence at Leipsic was not completely finished, separate dwellings were arranged for each of the sovereign families invited, in private houses, mostly on the market-place. Here they were to be furnished with provisions by the Elector's officials, but they were to cook for themselves. For this purpose all the princes had been requested to bring their own cooks and butlers, together with their plate and kitchen utensils. The sovereigns themselves were to dine daily with the Elector at the town-house, but the attendants and suite were to take their meals in their own lodgings. A brilliant collection of gentlemen and pages, appointed by the Elector to wait at his table, were ordered to assemble at Leipsic on the 22d, the guests having been all invited for the 23d. Many regulations were given to these noble youths, that they might discharge their duties with befitting decorum. Among other orders, they received particular injunctions that they were to abstain from all drinking among themselves, and from all riotous conduct whatever, while the sovereigns and potentates should be at dinner. "It would be a shameful indecency," it was urged, "if the great people sitting at table should be unable to hear themselves talk on account of the screaming of the attendants." This provision did not seem unreasonable. They were also instructed that if invited to drink by any personage at the great tables they were respectfully to decline the challenge, and to explain the cause after the repast.
Particular arrangements were also made for the safety of the city. Besides the regular guard of Leipsic, two hundred and twenty arquebuseers, spearsmen, and halberdmen, were ordered from the neighboring towns. These were to be all dressed in uniform; one arm, side and leg in black, and the other in yellow, according to a painting distributed beforehand to the various authorities. As a mounted patrole, Leipsic had a regular force of two men. These were now increased to ten, and received orders to ride with their lanterns up and down all the streets and lanes, to accost all persons whom they might find abroad without lights in their hands, to ask them their business in courteous language, and at the same time to see generally to the peace and safety of the town.
Fifty arquebuseers were appointed to protect the town-house, and a burgher watch of six hundred was distributed in different quarters, especially to guard against fire.
On Saturday, the day before the wedding, the guests had all arrived at Leipsic, and the Prince of Orange, with his friends, at Meneburg. On Sunday, the 24th August, the Elector at the head of his guests and attendants, in splendid array, rode forth to receive the bridegroom. His cavalcade numbered four thousand. William of Orange had arrived, accompanied by one thousand mounted men. The whole troop now entered the city together, escorting the Prince to the town-house. Here he dismounted, and was received on the staircase by the Princess Anna, attended by her ladies. She immediately afterwards withdrew to her apartments.
It was at this point, between 4 and 5 P.M., that the Elector and Electress, with the bride and bridegroom, accompanied also by the Dame Sophia von Miltitz and the Councillors Hans von Ponika and Ubrich Woltersdorff upon one side, and by Count John of Nassau and Heinrich von Wiltberg upon the other, as witnesses, appeared before Wolf Seidel, notary, in a corner room of the upper story of the town-house. One of the councillors, on the part of the Elector, then addressed the bridegroom. He observed that his highness would remember, no doubt, the contents of a memorandum or billet, sent by the Elector on the 14th April of that year, by the terms of which the Prince was to agree that he would, neither by threat nor persuasion, prevent his future wife from continuing in the Augsburg Confession; that he would allow her to go to places where she might receive the Augsburg sacraments; that in case of extreme need she should receive them in her chamber; and that the children who might spring from the marriage should be instructed as to the Augsburg doctrines. As, however, continued the councillor, his highness the Prince of Orange has, for various reasons, declined giving any such agreement in writing, as therefore it had been arranged that before the marriage ceremony the Prince should, in the presence of the bride and of the other witnesses, make a verbal promise on the subject, and as the parties were now to be immediately united in marriage, therefore the Elector had no doubt that the Prince would make no objection in presence of those witnesses to give his consent to maintain the agreements comprised in the memorandum or note. The note was then read. Thereupon, the Prince answered verbally. "Gracious Elector; I remember the writing which you sent me on the 14th April. All the point: just narrated by the Doctor were contained in it. I now state to your highness that I will keep it all as becomes a prince, and conform to it." Thereupon he gave the Elector his hand.—
What now was the amount and meaning of this promise on the part of the Prince? Almost nothing. He would conform to the demands of the Elector, exactly as he had hitherto said he would conform to them. Taken in connexion with his steady objections to sign and seal any instrument on the subject—with his distinct refusal to the Landgrave (through Knuttel) to allow the Princess an evangelical preacher or to receive the sacraments in the Netherlands—with the vehement, formal, and public protest, on the part of the Landgrave, against the marriage—with the Prince's declarations to the Elector at Dresden, which were satisfactory on all points save the religious point,—what meaning could this verbal promise have, save that the Prince would do exactly as much with regard to the religious question as he had always promised, and no more? This was precisely what did happen. There was no pretence on the part of the Elector, afterwards, that any other arrangement had been contemplated. The Princess lived catholically from the moment of her marriage, exactly as Orange had stated to the Duchess Margaret, and as the Elector knew would be the case. The first and the following children born of the marriage were baptized by Catholic priests, with very elaborate Catholic ceremonies, and this with the full consent of the Elector, who sent deputies and officiated as sponsor on one remarkable occasion.
Who, of all those guileless lambs then, Philip of Spain, the Elector of Saxony, or Cardinal Granvelle, had been deceived by the language or actions of the Prince? Not one. It may be boldly asserted that the Prince, placed in a transition epoch, both of the age and of his own character, surrounded by the most artful and intriguing personages known to history, and involved in a network of most intricate and difficult circumstances, acquitted himself in a manner as honorable as it was prudent. It is difficult to regard the notarial instrument otherwise than as a memorandum, filed rather by Augustus than by wise William, in order to put upon record for his own justification, his repeated though unsuccessful efforts to procure from the Prince a regularly signed, sealed, and holographic act, upon the points stated in the famous note.
After the delay occasioned by these private formalities, the bridal procession, headed by the court musicians, followed by the court marshals, councillors, great officers of state, and the electoral family, entered the grand hall of the town-house. The nuptial ceremony was then performed by "the Superintendent Doctor Pfeffinger." Immediately afterwards, and in the same hall, the bride and bridegroom were placed publicly upon a splendid, gilded bed, with gold-embroidered curtains, the Princess being conducted thither by the Elector and Electress. Confects and spiced drinks were then served to them and to the assembled company. After this ceremony they were conducted to their separate chambers, to dress for dinner. Before they left the hall, however, Margrave Hans of Brandenburg, on part of the Elector of Saxony, solemnly recommended the bride to her husband, exhorting him to cherish her with faith and affection, and "to leave her undisturbed in the recognized truth of the holy gospel and the right use of the sacraments."