He was weary of playing the hypocrite, and convinced that he and his monarch were both abhorred by the Netherlanders.

Peace was impossible--war was forbidden him.

Reduced almost to a nullity by the Prince of Orange, it was time for him to make a stand, and in this impregnable fastness his position at least was a good one.

Many months before, the Prince of Orange had expressed his anxious desire that this most important town and citadel should be secured-for the estates.

"You know," he had written to Bossu in December, "the evil and the dismay which the loss of the city and fortress of Namur would occasion to us.