"My heart longs for certain tidings from my lord," she wrote to William, "for methinks the peace now in prospect will prove but an oppression for soul and conscience.

I trust my heart's dearly-beloved lord and son will be supported by Divine grace to do nothing against God and his own soul's salvation.

'Tis better to lose the temporal than the eternal." Thus wrote the mother of William, and we can feel the sympathetic thrill which such tender and lofty words awoke in his breast.

His son, the ill-starred Philip, now for ten years long a compulsory sojourner in Spain, was not yet weaned from his affection for his noble parent, but sent messages of affection to him whenever occasion offered, while a less commendable proof of his filial affection he had lately afforded, at the expense of the luckless captain of his Spanish guard.

That officer having dared in his presence to speak disrespectfully of his father, was suddenly seized about the waist by the enraged young Count, hurled out of the window, and killed stone-dead upon the spot.