She was a gracious and charming lady, she adored him, and she was his father’s mother, but she had delivered his town of Orange to the French and she had delivered him to the States General. William could not forgive these things. He had against her, also, her quarrels with the proud young mother he had worshipped, and her constant coquettings with the republican party. But he constrained himself to forbear with her now, endured her anxieties over his health, promised to write to her and send Mr. Bromley with messages; even took her caresses, let her fold her perfumed arms about him and again kiss his forehead.
She went to the window and watched him ride off through the rain; Mr. Bromley, blonde and fresh-faced, waving his hat to her. She had been told that Oliver Cromwell had said: “This William, son of the late King’s daughter, will, if he lives, be heard of.”
The words occurred to her now, with a mingling of pride and pain. She also was often lonely.
M. Simon Simonides, one of the clergy who made the pulpit the platform of opposition to the Government of John de Witt, arrived at the “Huis ten bosch” almost before the Prince had ridden out of sight under the dripping trees. He was a favourite with the Princess. Amalia of Solms, who was always served on gold plate, and the Calvinist pastor who lived on a hundred gulden a year, had much in common. She greeted him warmly, telling him that her grandson had just left.
“I would I had met him, Your Highness,” answered the pastor, deeply disappointed.
“You do not know him, of course,” she remarked.
“I know of him, Madame. M. Triglandt, at present exiled in Utrecht, hath spoken to me of him.” The old man’s countenance flushed. “I have seen His Highness’ letters, I have seen his face in church. I know him a prince in a thousand; a nature as strong, as deep, as constant as any the Lord God ever made.”