utmost importance to entrust the command of the troops to none but those of whose fidelity she was fully assured. She caused, therefore, an oath to be drawn up which bound all who took it to advance the Roman Catholic faith, to pursue and punish the Iconoclasts, and to help by every means in their power in extirpating all kinds of heresy. It also pledged them to treat the king's enemies as their own, and to serve without distinction against all whom the regent in the king's name should point out. By this oath she did not hope so much to test their sincerity, and still less to secure them, as rather to gain a pretext for removing the suspected parties if they declined to take it, and for wresting from their hands a power which they abused, or a legitimate ground for punishing them if they took it and broke it. This oath was exacted from all Knights of the Fleece, all civil functionaries and magistrates, all officers of the army--from every one in short who held any appointment in the state. Count Mansfeld was the first who publicly took it in the council of state at Brussels; his example was followed by the Duke of Arschot, Counts Egmont, Megen, and Barlaimont. Hogstraten and Horn endeavored to evade the necessity. The former was offended at a proof of distrust which shortly before the regent had given him. Under the pretext that Malines could not safely be left any longer without its governor, but that the presence of the count was no less necessary in Antwerp, she had taken from him that province and given it to another whose fidelity she could better reckon upon. Hostraten expressed his thanks that she had been pleased to release him from one of his burdens, adding that she would complete the obligation if she would relieve him from the other also. True to his determination Count Horn was living on one of his estates in the strong town of Weerdt, having retired altogether from public affairs. Having quitted the service of the state, he owed, he thought, nothing more either to the republic or to the king, and declined the oath, which in his case appears at last to have been waived. The Count of Brederode was left the choice of either taking the prescribed oath or resigning the command of his squadron of cavalry. After many fruitless attempts to evade the alternative, on the plea that he did not hold office in the state, he at last resolved upon the latter course, and thereby escaped all risk of perjuring himself.