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PREFACE TO FIFTH EDITION

Table of Contents

This historical novel is the second in a series of five which the writer has composed from the history of The Netherlands, a subject hitherto untouched by English romancers. Prince and Heretic dealt with William I of Orange (called in English "William the Silent"), in the early days of his career, and with his first marriage, and the beginning of the revolt in The Netherlands, those northern provinces of Philip II's Dutch dominions which finally wrested themselves free from his power, and constituted the Dutch Republic, the first free country in Europe.

The present story, which is a sequel to the first, brings us into the heart of the struggle, and commences when the prospects of the Dutch looked dark and even disastrous. The tale introduces William as a fugitive, but in no way dispirited or disheartened, and still animated by that intense ardour and enthusiasm for the work to which he had set his hand and which was, in the end, to prove eminently successful.

The effect of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew on the cause and on the Prince next follows. The book covers the battle of Mookerheide, with the tragic death of the two young Nassau princes, the brothers of William, the siege of Leiden, and finally the assassination of William at Delft by Gèrard, the fanatic Burgundian.

The story, however, does not end on a note of despair, for, if William of Nassau was killed, his son Maurice of Nassau lived; and that son was to prove a more than worthy successor to his great father, and regain for The Netherlands many towns and villages, and to set on a firm basis the Dutch Republic that his brother, Frederic Henry, was to raise to a bright pinnacle of glory.

Women do not play a great part in this story, which is essentially of men and men's affairs, and deals with the building up of a nation; but there are portraits of Charlotte of Bourbon, the one-time nun, and Louise, the last wives of William of Orange, and the devotion of an obscure lady-in-waiting runs like a quiet obbligato through all the affairs of state and all the pomp of war.

Nearly a hundred years later, the Dutch Republic, built up by William of Orange and his friends and sup porters into one of the great powers of Europe, was again in grave danger—this time in peril of utter extinction by a foreign foe, as it had been through the efforts of the King of Spain in peril of utter extinction almost before it was created.

This time it was France that swept The Netherlands, and again it was a Prince of the House of Orange who rescued them. This story, one of the most splendid in modern history, is told in the three books, I Will Maintain, Defender of the Faith, God and The King, which carries the story of Holland down to the opening years of the eighteenth century.

The last of this series covers the history of England at that period as well, the fortunes of the two nations being then one; nor is the story of William the Silent without interest for English readers, for it touches our story at many points—Philip II, his grim opponent, was the husband of one of our English queens, Mary Tudor, and her Protestant sister, Queen Elizabeth, did send help to William the Silent, though perhaps in a paltry measure. Sidney and Leicester are still well-known names in The Netherlands, and there are few towns which have not some memory of the help given by England to the Dutch in the sixteenth century. Zutphen is still celebrated as the spot where the famous Sir Philip Sidney met his end, and there can be no doubt that the firm resistance of the Dutch to the aggressions of Spain did keep at bay a most formidable foreign power that was striving, with every effort, to reduce the prestige and even the very existence of England, the England as was then established after the Reformation.

English volunteers in considerable numbers also helped Maurice of Nassau, later Prince of Orange, though he had no official assistance from England, and the names of the Veres and Charles Morgan are still strongly associated with these long wars in the Low Countries, only finally terminated by the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, which put an end to these religious conflicts: thus concluding the long struggle for the Dutch Independence and the Thirty Years War in Germany which, for a great part of the time, ran side by side with it, and which produced another great Protestant hero from the north, Gustavus-Adolphus, to assist in holding back the power of Rome and the princes helped and inspired by Rome. How far these wars were really political and how far really religious, it is now impossible to decide, then as now men's motives being so mixed; but, with all the allowances made for the intrigues of politicians and the ambitions of princes, there can be no doubt that these Protestants—from kings to peasants—were fighting, in the main, for the cause of liberty, and struggling to break away from tyrannies Which had become insupportable, and which were represented by Catholic powers—the Pope, the Emperor, the Kings of France and Spain—all, on their several occasions, striving to overwhelm and destroy the countries of the north which had adopted the reformed religion: England, The Netherlands and Scandinavia, and parts of Germany itself, the cradle of the Reformation.

It is this struggle, continuing for so many years, which is the main theme of these five romances of which this is the second; and, though the heroes change, the cause does not, and the theme, though treated with many varieties of scene and character, remains identical from first to last of these five books.

Though written mainly from a Protestant angle, they contain no prejudice whatever against the Roman Catholics, in whose cause many grand figures fought, and for whose politics and outlook there was, of course, a great deal to be said; and who had, in many of their pretensions, considerable justification, at least in the matter of worldly rights. One need cherish no bias for one side or the other to be enabled to appreciate the stories of these Princes of the House of Orange, and their long and persistent struggles against unequal odds.

MARJORIE BOWEN.

GRAY'S INN, LONDON.

February 8, 1928.