Intervention in the Netherlands

Abstract

The assassination of William the Silent at Delft,¹ 9 July 1584, left the Dutch cause in a desperate state. One by one the national leaders who stood in the way of the Counter-Reformation had been marked down: Moray in Scotland, Coligny in France, now William—and Elizabeth would have followed, if the fanatics could have had their way. The Catholic cause was very unrespectable in its methods, nor is it sensible to regard them as ineffective: they were bitterly effective. The Protestants may perhaps be excused for regarding their survival—and ultimate victory—as providential: the usual way people have of expressing it when the strongest of instincts, that of self-preservation, wins through.