History of Protestantism in the Netherlands - James Aitken Wylie

colourless almost as the marble.
The pageant was at an end. Charles had handed
over to another that vast possession of dominion
which had so severely taxed his manhood, and
which was crushing his age. The princes, knights,
warriors, and counsellors have left the hall, and
gone forth to betake them each to his own several
road -- Charles to the monastic cell which he had
interposed between him and the grave; Philip to
that throne from which he was to direct that fearful
array of armies, inquisitors, and executioners, that
was to make Europe swim in blood; William of
Orange to prepare for that now not distant struggle,
which he saw to be inevitable if bounds were to be
set to the vast ambition and fanatical fury of Spain,
and some remnants of liberty preserved in
Christendom. Others went forth to humbler yet
important tasks; some to win true glory by worthy
deeds, others to leave behind them names which
should be an execration to posterity; but nearly all
of them to expire, not on the bed of peace, but on
the battle-field, on the scaffold, or by the poignard
of the assassin.
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