whole, however, there was not much negotiation between the monarch and
the ambassador. When the Count spoke of business, the King would speak
to him of his daughters, and of his desire to see them provided with
brilliant marriages. As Egmont had eight girls, besides two sons, it was
natural that he should be pleased to find Philip taking so much interest
in looking out husbands for them. The King spoke to him, as hardly could
be avoided, of the famous fool's-cap livery. The Count laughed the
matter off as a jest, protesting that it was a mere foolish freak,
originating at the wine-table, and asseverating, with warmth, that
nothing disrespectful or disloyal to his Majesty had been contemplated
upon that or upon any other occasion. Had a single gentleman uttered an
undutiful word against the King, Egmont vowed he would have stabbed him
through and through upon the spot, had he been his own brother. These
warm protestations were answered by a gentle reprimand as to the past
by Philip, and with a firm caution as to the future. "Let it be
discontinued entirely, Count," said the King, as the two were driving
together in the royal carriage. Egmont expressed himself in handsome
terms concerning the Cardinal, in return for the wholesale approbation
quoted to him in regard to his own character, from the private letters
of that sagacious personage to his Majesty. Certainly, after all this,
the Count might suppose the affair of the livery forgiven. Thus amicably
passed the hours of that mission, the preliminaries for which had called
forth so much eloquence from the Prince of Orange and so nearly carried
off with apoplexy the President Viglius. On his departure Egmont
received a letter of instructions from Philip as to the report which
he was to make upon his arrival in Brussels, to the Duchess. After many
things personally flattering to himself, the envoy was directed to
represent the King as overwhelmed with incredible grief at hearing the
progress made by the heretics, but as immutably determined to permit no
change of religion within his dominions, even were he to die a thousand