This edict, under Philip’s own signature, is a tissue of invective and virulence.  The illustrious object of its abuse is accused of having engaged the heretics to profane the churches and break the images; of having persecuted and massacred the Catholic priests; of hypocrisy, tyranny, and perjury; and, as the height of atrocity, of having introduced liberty of conscience into his country!  For these causes, and many others, the king declares him “proscribed and banished as a public pest”; and it is permitted to all persons to assail him “in his fortune, person, and life, as an enemy to human nature.”  Philip also, “for the recompense of virtue and the punishment of crime,” promises to whoever will deliver up William of Nassau, dead or alive, “in lands or money, at his choice, the sum of twenty-five thousand golden crowns; to grant a free pardon to such person for all former offences of what kind soever, and to invest him with letters patent of nobility.”

In reply to this brutal document of human depravity, William published all over Europe his famous “Apology,” of which it is enough to say that language could not produce a more splendid refutation of every charge or a more terrible recrimination against the guilty tyrant.  It was attributed to the pen of Peter de Villiers, a Protestant minister.  It is universally pronounced one of the noblest monuments of history.  William, from the hour of his proscription, became at once the equal in worldly station, as he had ever been the superior in moral worth, of his royal calumniator.  He took his place as a prince of an imperial family, not less ancient or illustrious than that of the House of Austria; and he stood forward at the supreme tribunal of public feeling and opinion as the accuser of a king who disgraced his lineage and his throne.

By a separate article in the treaty with the states, the duke of Alencon secured to William the sovereignty of Holland and Zealand, as well as the lordship of Friesland, with his title of stadtholder, retaining to the duke his claim on the prince’s faith and homage.  The exact nature of William’s authority was finally ratified on the 24th of July, 1581; on which day he took the prescribed oath, and entered on the exercise of his well-earned rights.

Philip now formed the design of sending back the duchess of Parma to resume her former situation as stadtholderess, and exercise the authority conjointly with her son.  But the latter positively declined this proposal of divided power; and he, consequently, was left alone to its entire exercise.  Military affairs made but slow progress this year.  The most remarkable event was the capture of La Noue, a native of Bretagne, one of the bravest, and certainly the cleverest, officers in the service of the states, into which he had passed after having given important aid to the Huguenots of France.  He was considered so important a prize that Philip refused all proposals for his exchange, and detained him in the castle of Limburg for five years.