CHAPTER XII
ORANGE AND EGMONT
The Regent, more and more in a dilemma, refused to accept the Prince's resignation; indeed, shortly after he had offered it she implored him to again go to Antwerp, where Calvinists and Lutherans were embroiling the city.
William went, arriving after the disastrous engagement of Ostrawell, when a band of fiery Calvinists under Ste Aldegonde's brother, Jean de Marnix, had been utterly cut to pieces, their gallant young leader being the first to fall.
William had come in time to prevent an internecine war that would have devastated the city; at great peril to himself he had prevented the two Protestant sects from flying at each other's throats, and actually restored order in Antwerp and induced the crowd to say after him, "Vive le roi!"
But he knew that all he did was useless; when the English Envoy congratulated him on his splendid labours, he replied: "But it will not please the King; I know there is nothing of this that will please the King."
It did not even please the Regent; too many concessions had been made to the heretics, too much gentleness shown. She preferred the way Egmont had treated Valenciennes, which had been reduced to a complete and bloody silence; and the method of Noircames, of Meghem, of Aremberg, who, rejoicing at the approach of a profitable civil war, were desolating the country, crushing the heretic with an iron hand, and sweeping his property into their own pockets.
Yet Margaret still refused to accept the resignation that William tendered again and again; she still clung to his strength and authority, even while she denounced him in every letter she wrote to Philip.
Perhaps, too, she guessed that Philip had his vengeance ready for the Prince of Orange, and that he would be wroth with her if the illustrious victim was suffered to escape.
For Margaret was sincere in nothing but her desire to serve her brother, and true to nothing save to that brother and the Romish Church.
She tried all her arts to induce the Prince to remain in the King's service: she sent him a flattering letter, appealing to "his noble heart, his illustrious and loyal descent, his duty to King and country"; she invited him to Brussels, to a meeting of the Knights of the Golden Fleece; and when he declined both, she sent Berty, secretary of the State Council, to the Prince at Antwerp.