Among the small company who first subscribed the document, we find names that rose to eminence in the stormy scenes of the revolution. There was Count Louis of Nassau, a younger brother of the prince of Orange, the "_bon chevalier_," as William used to call him,--a title well earned by his generous spirit and many noble and humane qualities. Louis was bred a Lutheran, and was zealously devoted to the cause of reform, when his brother took but a comparatively languid interest in it. His ardent, precipitate temper was often kept in check, and more wisely directed, by the prudent counsels of William; while he amply repaid his brother by his devoted attachment, and by the zeal and intrepidity with which he carried out his plans. Louis, indeed, might be called the right hand of William. Another of the party was Philip de Marnix, lord of St. Aldegonde. He was the intimate friend of William of Orange. In the words of a Belgian writer, he was one of the beautiful characters of the time;[691] distinguished alike as a soldier, a statesman, and a scholar. It is to his pen that the composition of the "Compromise" has generally been assigned. Some critics have found its tone inconsistent with the sedate and tranquil character of his mind. Yet St. Aldegonde's device, "_Repos ailleurs_,"[692] would seem to indicate a fervid imagination and an impatient spirit of activity. But the man who seems to have entered most heartily into these first movements of the revolution was Henry, viscount of Brederode. He sprung from an ancient line, boasting his descent from the counts of Holland. The only possession that remained to him, the lordship of Viana, he still claimed to hold as independent of the king of Spain, or any other potentate. His patrimony had been wasted in a course of careless indulgence, and little else was left than barren titles and pretensions,--which, it must be owned, he was not diffident in vaunting. He was fond of convivial pleasures, and had a free, reckless humor, that took with the people, to whom he was still more endeared by his sturdy hatred of oppression. Brederode was, in short, one of those busy, vaporing characters, who make themselves felt at the outset of a revolution, but are soon lost in the course of it; like those ominous birds which with their cries and screams herald in the tempest that soon sweeps them out of sight for ever.