ceremony, "deeply moved the nobility and gentry, many of whom burst into
tears; even the illustrious Knights of the Fleece were melted." The
historian, Pontus Heuterus, who, then twenty years of age, was likewise
among the audience, attests that "most of the assembly were dissolved in
tears; uttering the while such sonorous sobs that they compelled his
Caesarean Majesty and the Queen to cry with them. My own face," he adds,
"was certainly quite wet." The English envoy, Sir John Mason, describing
in a despatch to his government the scene which he had just witnessed,
paints the same picture. "The Emperor," he said, "begged the forgiveness
of his subjects if he had ever unwittingly omitted the performance of any
of his duties towards them. And here," continues the envoy, "he broke
into a weeping, whereunto, besides the dolefulness of the matter,
I think, he was moche provoked by seeing the whole company to do the lyke
before; there beyng in myne opinion not one man in the whole assemblie,
stranger or another, that dewring the time of a good piece of his oration
poured not out as abundantly teares, some more, some lesse. And yet he
prayed them to beare with his imperfections, proceeding of his sickly
age, and of the mentioning of so tender a matter as the departing from
such a sort of dere and loving subjects."

And yet what was the Emperor Charles to the inhabitants of the
Netherlands that they should weep for him? His conduct towards them
during his whole career had been one of unmitigated oppression. What to
them were all these forty voyages by sea and land, these journeyings back
and forth from Friesland to Tunis, from Madrid to Vienna. What was it to
them that the imperial shuttle was thus industriously flying to and fro?
The fabric wrought was but the daily growing grandeur and splendor of his
imperial house; the looms were kept moving at the expense of their
hardly-earned treasure, and the woof was often dyed red in the blood of
his bravest subjects. The interests of the Netherlands had never been