the Jews would their Messiah," wrote another Royalist. The public entries of the Prince into Brussels, Antwerp, and Ghent were triumphal processions, wherein men and women flung themselves on their knees before him, and the citizens formed voluntary guards of honour around him, and stood sentinel day and night at the door of his abode.
This popular effervescence was only a part of the general excitement. The violence of the reformers was answered by reaction amongst the Catholics. In Holland the Calvinists instituted persecution of priests and papists. In each city the local bodies, swayed from side to side by demagogues and partisans, acted independently and fell into arbitrary disorder. "There was nothing," writes the Dutch historian, "but dissensions, jealousies, heart-burnings, hatred; every one claimed to rule, no one would obey." Dutch, German, Walloon, and Fleming were in fierce antagonism. The Northern Provinces tended to a republic. Burgher juntos gave orders on military affairs to their own captains, or sullenly refused to admit garrisons to defend them from Spain. From Brussels Ste. Aldegonde writes that the cause of true religion is strangely hated and suspected everywhere, and "it seems that they would rather be ruined without us than saved with us" (qu'ils ayment mieulx se perdre sans nous, que de se sauver avecque nous). Again he writes to the Prince—"The malady is deeper than I had supposed"—"I find here dire confusion in everything"—"On our side there is neither order, nor money, nor content"—"Unless your Excellency comes, we are certainly lost."
Well might honest John write to the Landgrave:
