From this time forth the position of, these leading seigniors became more sharply defined. Orange was left in almost complete isolation. Without the assistance of Egmont, any effective resistance to the impending invasion from Spain seemed out of the question. The Count, however, had taken his irrevocable and fatal resolution. After various oscillations during the stormy period which had elapsed, his mind, notwithstanding all the disturbing causes by which it had hitherto been partially influenced, now pointed steadily to the point of loyalty. The guidance of that pole star was to lead him to utter shipwreck. The unfortunate noble, entrenched against all fear of Philip by the brazen wall of an easy conscience; saw no fault in his past at which he should grow pale with apprehension. Moreover, he was sanguine by nature, a Catholic in religion, a royalist from habit and conviction. Henceforth he was determined that his services to the crown should more than counterbalance any idle speeches or insolent demonstrations of which he might have been previously guilty. Horn pursued a different course, but one which separated him also from the Prince, while it led to the same fate which Egmont was blindly pursuing.--The Admiral had committed no act of treason. On the contrary, he had been doing his best, under most difficult circumstances, to avert rebellion and save the interests of a most ungrateful sovereign. He was now disposed to wrap himself in his virtue, to retreat from a court life, for which he had never felt a vocation, and to resign all connection with a government by which he felt himself very badly, treated. Moody, wrathful, disappointed, ruined, and calumniated, he would no longer keep terms with King or Duchess. He had griefs of long standing against the whole of the royal family. He had never forgiven the Emperor for refusing him, when young, the appointment of chamberlain. He had served Philip long and faithfully, but he had never received a stiver of salary or "merced," notwithstanding all his work as state councillor, as admiral, as superintendent in Spain; while his younger brother had long been in receipt of nine or ten thousand florins yearly. He had spent four hundred thousand florins in the King's service; his estates were mortgaged to their full value; he had been obliged to sell, his family plate. He had done his best in Tourney to serve the Duchess, and he had averted the "Sicilian vespers," which had been imminent at his arrival. He had saved the Catholics from a general massacre, yet he heard nevertheless from Montigny, that all his actions were distorted in Spain, and his motives blackened. His heart no longer inclined him to continue in Philip's service, even were he furnished with the means of doing so. He had instructed his secretary, Alonzo de la Loo, whom he had despatched many months previously to Madrid, that he was no longer to press his