History of Protestantism in the Netherlands - James Aitken Wylie

Chapter 26
Assassination of William the
Silent
THE Seven United Provinces -- the fair flower
of Netherland Protestantism -- had come to the
birth. The clouds and tempests that overhung the
cradle of the infant States were destined to roll
away, the sun of prosperity and power was to shine
forth upon them, and for the space of a full century
the number of their inhabitants, the splendor of
their cities, the beauty of their country, the vastness
of their commerce, the growth of their wealth, the
number of their ships, the strength of their armies,
and the glory of their letters and arts, were to make
them the admiration of Europe, and of the world.
Not, however, till that man who had helped above
all others to find for Protestantism a seat where it
might expand into such a multiform magnificence,
had gone to his grave, was this stupendous growth
to be, beheld by the world. We have now to attend
to the condition in which the dissolution of Philip's
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