There is but one important feature in the character of William which we have hitherto left untouched, but which the circumstances of his death seemed to sanctify, and point out for record in the same page with it. We mean his religious opinions; and we shall despatch a subject which is, in regard to all men, so delicate, indeed so sacred, in a few words. He was born a Lutheran. When he arrived, a boy, at the court of Charles V., he was initiated into the Catholic creed, in which he was thenceforward brought up. Afterward, when he could think for himself and choose his profession of faith, he embraced the doctrine of Calvin. His whole public conduct seems to prove that he viewed sectarian principles chiefly in the light of political instruments; and that, himself a conscientious Christian, in the broad sense of the term, he was deeply imbued with the spirit of universal toleration, and considered the various shades of belief as subservient to the one grand principle of civil and religious liberty, for which he had long devoted and at length laid down his life. His assassin was taken alive, and four days afterward executed with terrible circumstances of cruelty, which he bore as a martyr might have borne them. He was a native of Burgundy, and had for some months lingered near his victim, and insinuated himself into his confidence by a feigned attachment to liberty, and an apparent zeal for the reformed faith. He was nevertheless a bigoted Catholic and, by his own confession, he had communicated his design to, and received encouragement to its execution from, more than one minister of the sect to which he belonged. But his avowal criminated a more important accomplice, and one whose character stands so high in history that it behooves us to examine thoroughly the truth of the accusation, and the nature of the collateral proofs by which it is supported. Most writers on this question have leaned to the side which all would wish to adopt, for the honor of human nature and the integrity of a celebrated name. But an original letter exists in the archives of Brussels, from the prince of Parma himself to Philip of Spain, in which he admits that Balthazar Gerard had communicated to him his intention of murdering the Prince of Orange some months before the deed was done; and he mixes phrases of compassion for "the poor man" (the murderer) and of praise for the act; which, if the document be really authentic, sinks Alexander of Parma as low as the wretch with whom he sympathized. CHAPTER XIII TO THE DEATH OF ALEXANDER, PRINCE OF PARMA A.D. 1584--1592