We have contented ourselves with stating the facts with regard to all, up to the period at which we have arrived.

Their characters have been sketched, not according to subsequent developments, but as they appeared at the opening of this important epoch.
The aspect of the country and its inhabitants offered many sharp contrasts, and revealed many sources of future trouble.
The aristocracy of the Netherlands was excessively extravagant, dissipated, and already considerably embarrassed in circumstances.

It had been the policy of the Emperor and of Philip to confer high offices, civil, military, and diplomatic, upon the leading nobles, by which enormous expenses were entailed upon them, without any corresponding salaries.

The case of Orange has been already alluded to, and there were many other nobles less able to afford the expense, who had been indulged with these ruinous honors.

During the war, there had been, however, many chances of bettering broken fortunes.