Requesens sent Champagny to counteract these
negotiations, which ended in nothing. The English Queen was afraid of
provoking the power of Spain, and could not even be induced to grant the
Hollanders a loan. The attitude assumed at that time by the Duke of
Alencon in France also prevented them from entering into any
negotiations with that Prince.
In these trying circumstances William the Silent displayed the greatest
firmness and courage. It was now that he is said to have contemplated
abandoning Holland and seeking with its inhabitants a home in the New
World, having first restored the country to its ancient state of a waste
of waters, a thought, however, which he probably never seriously
entertained, though he may have given utterance to it in a moment of
irritation or despondency. On June 12, 1575, William had married
Charlotte de Bourbon, daughter of the Duke of Montpensier. The Prince's
second wife, Anne of Saxony, had turned out a drunken, violent
character, and at length an intrigue which she formed with John Rubens,
an exiled magistrate of Antwerp, and father of the celebrated painter,
justified William in divorcing her. She subsequently became insane.
Charlotte de Bourbon had been brought up a Calvinist, but at a later
period, her father having joined the party of the persecutors, she took
refuge with the Elector Palatine, and it was under these circumstances
that she received the addresses of the Prince of Orange.
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