- rarily set back the cause of Protestantism and freedom.
This was the Massacre of St. Bartholomew in Paris, when Coligny, the leader of the Huguenots—the French Protestants—who had promised to come to the assistance of Orange, was murdered by the Catholics.
Orange went to live in Delft, which became his home. He had made up his mind to cast his lot for good and all with the Hollanders and Zeelanders in their struggle for freedom. There in their midst he continued to inspire their spirit of resistance and independence. His was the moving spirit which helped the Dutch gradually by their extraordinary endurance to wear down the Spanish armies. It was his spirit, too, that kept the Spanish at bay at the celebrated siege of Haarlem, when for seven months the inhabitants endured terrible sufferings—the women fighting for their lives as well as the men—until they were starved out. The relief of Leyden was effected by Orange's own personal exertions, though ill with fever.
In 1573 Orange became a Calvinist, so as to identify himself more completely with the cause he had at heart. But he was not a bigoted Calvinist any more than he had been a devoted Catholic. He had always been ready to respect the good side of every religion. He never could understand why people should not live happily together, praying in their own way. The spirit of Religion appealed to him,
