In reply to the ban the prince at the close of the year (December 13) published a very lengthy defence of his life and actions, the famous _Apology_. To William himself is undoubtedly due the material which the document embodies and the argument it contains, but it was almost certainly not written by him, but by his chaplain, Pierre L'Oyseleur, Seigneur de Villiers, to whom it owes its rather ponderous prolixity and redundant verbiage. Historically it is of very considerable value, though the facts are not always to be relied upon as strictly accurate. The _Apology_ was translated into several languages and distributed to the leading personages in every neighbouring country, and made a deep impression on men's minds.
The combined effect of the _Ban_ and _the Apology_ was to strengthen William's position in all the provinces where the patriot party still held the upper hand; and he was not slow to take advantage of the strong anti-Spanish feeling which was aroused. Its intensity was shown by the solemn Act of Abjuration, July 26, 1581, by which the provinces of Brabant, Flanders, Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht and Gelderland renounced their allegiance to Philip II on the ground of his tyranny and misrule. But after signing this Act it never seems to have occurred to the prince or to the representatives of the provinces, that these now derelict territories could remain without a personal sovereign. Orange used all his influence and persuasiveness to induce them to accept Anjou. Anjou, as we have seen, had already agreed to the conditions under which he should, when invited, become "prince and lord" of the Netherlands. In the autumn of 1581 the position was an ambiguous one. The States-General claimed that, after the abjuration of Philip, the sovereignty of the provinces had reverted to them, as the common representative of a group of provinces that were now sovereign in their own right, and that the conferring of that sovereignty on another overlord was their prerogative. The position of Orange was peculiar, for _de facto_ under one title or another he exercised the chief authority in each one of the rebel provinces, but in the name of the States-General, instead of the king. His influence indeed was so great as to over-shadow that of the States-General, but great as it was, it had to be exerted to the utmost before that body could be induced to accept a man of Anjou's despicable and untrustworthy character as their new ruler. William however had committed himself to the candidature of the duke, through lack of any fitter choice; and at last both the States-General and the several provincial Estates (Holland and Zeeland excepted) agreed to confer the sovereignty upon the French prince subject to the conditions of the treaty of Plessis-les-Tours.