'Groningen! Groningen!' would that I had never seen thy walls!" he cried repeatedly in his last hours.
He refused to see his sister, whose insidious counsels had combined with his own evil passions to make him a traitor; and he died on the 23rd of July, 1581, repentant and submissive.

His heart, after his decease, was found "shrivelled to the dimensions of a walnut," a circumstance attributed to poison by some, to remorse by others.

His regrets; his early death, and his many attractive qualities, combined to: save his character from universal denunciation, and his name, although indelibly stained by treason, was ever mentioned with pity rather than with rancor.
Great changes, destined to be perpetual, were steadily preparing in the internal condition of the provinces.

A preliminary measure of an important character had been taken early this year by the assembly of the united provinces held in the month of January at Delft.

This was the establishment of a general executive council.