soon as an adequate number of executions had paved the way for the
measure. It was also a sufficient indication of a reckless despotism,
that while the Duchess, who had made the memorable Accord with the
Religionists, received a flattering letter of thanks and a farewell
pension of fourteen thousand ducats yearly, those who, by her orders, had
acted upon that treaty as the basis of their negotiations, were summoned
to lay down their heads upon the block.

The Prince replied to this summons by a brief and somewhat contemptuous
plea to the jurisdiction. As a Knight of the Fleece, as a member of the
Germanic Empire, as a sovereign prince in France, as a citizen of the
Netherlands, he rejected the authority of Alva and of his self-
constituted tribunal. His innocence he was willing to establish before
competent courts and righteous judges. As a Knight of the Fleece, he
said he could be tried only by his peers, the brethren of the Order, and,
for that purpose, he could be summoned only by the King as Head of the
Chapter, with the sanction of at least six of his fellow-knights. In
conclusion, he offered to appear before his Imperial Majesty, the
Electors, and other members of the Empire, or before the Knights of the
Golden Fleece. In the latter case, he claimed the right, under the
statutes of that order, to be placed while the trial was pending, not in
a solitary prison, as had been the fate of Egmont and of Horn, but under
the friendly charge and protection of the brethren themselves. The
letter was addressed to the procurator-general, and a duplicate was
forwarded to the Duke.

From the general tenor of the document, it is obvious both that the
Prince was not yet ready to throw down the gauntlet to his sovereign,
nor to proclaim his adhesion to the new religion: Of departing from the
Netherlands in the spring, he had said openly that he was still in