dyed in the blood of the people. This truth was so self-evident, that
even a member of the Blood-Council, Pierre Arsens, president of Artois,
addressed an elaborate memoir to the Duke of Alva, criticising the case
according to the rules of law, and maintaining that Egmont, instead of
deserving punishment, was entitled to a signal reward.

So much for the famous treason of Counts Egmont and Horn, so far as
regards the history of the proceedings and the merits of the case. The
last act of the tragedy was precipitated by occurrences which must be now
narrated.

The Prince of Orange had at last thrown down the gauntlet. Proscribed,
outlawed, with his Netherland property confiscated, and his eldest child
kidnapped, he saw sufficient personal justification for at last stepping
into the lists, the avowed champion of a nation's wrongs. Whether the
revolution was to be successful, or to be disastrously crushed; whether
its result would be to place him upon a throne or a scaffold, not even
he, the deep-revolving and taciturn politician, could possibly foresee.
The Reformation, in which he took both a political and a religious
interest, might prove a sufficient lever in his hands for the overthrow
of Spanish power in the Netherlands. The inquisition might roll back
upon his country and himself, crushing them forever. The chances seemed
with the inquisition. The Spaniards, under the first chieftain in
Europe, were encamped and entrenched in the provinces. The Huguenots had
just made their fatal peace in France, to the prophetic dissatisfaction
of Coligny. The leading men of liberal sentiments in the Netherlands
were captive or in exile. All were embarrassed by the confiscations
which, in anticipation of sentence, had severed the nerves of war. The
country was terror-stricken; paralyzed, motionless, abject, forswearing
its convictions, and imploring only life. At this moment William of