History of Protestantism in the Netherlands - James Aitken Wylie

shadow of Rome and Spain seemed again to
approach them, and all trembled, from the wealthy
merchant on the exchanges of Antwerp and
Brussels, to the rude fisherman on the solitary coast
of Zealand. The gloom was universal and tragical.
The diplomacy of Parma and the ducats of Spain
were instantly set to work to corrupt and seduce the
Provinces. The faint-hearted, the lukewarm, and
the secretly hostile were easily drawn away, and
induced to abandon the great struggle for
Netherland liberty and the Protestant faith. Ghent,
the key-stone of that arch of which one side was
Roman Catholic and the other Protestant,
reconciled itself to Philip. Bruges, Brussels,
Antwerp, Mechlin, and other towns of Brabant and
Flanders, won by the diplomacy or vanquished by
the arms of Parma, returned under the yoke. It
seemed as if the free State which the labors and
sacrifices of William the Silent had called into
existence was about to disappear from the scene,
and accompany its founder to the tomb.
But the work of William was not so to vanish;
its root was deeper. When the first moments of
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