were summoned to appear within fourteen days before the Blood Council.
At the appointed time the procureur-general was ready with an act of
accusation, accompanied, as was usually the case, with a simultaneous
sentence of condemnation. The indictment revived and recapitulated all
previous offences committed in the city and the province, particularly
during the troubles of 1566, and at the epoch of the treaty with Duchess
Margaret. The inhabitants and the magistrates, both in their individual
and public capacities, were condemned for heresy, rebellion, and
misprision. The city and province were accordingly pronounced guilty
of high treason, were deprived of all their charters, laws, privileges,
freedoms, and customs, and were declared to have forfeited all their
property, real and personal, together with all tolls, rents, excises, and
imposts, the whole being confiscated to the benefit of his Majesty.

The immediate execution of the sentence was, however, suspended, to allow
the estates opportunity to reply. An enormous mass of pleadings,
replies, replications, rejoinders, and apostilles was the result, which
few eyes were destined to read, and least of all those to whom they were
nominally addressed. They were of benefit to none save in the shape of
fees which they engendered to the gentlemen of the robe. It was six
months, however, before the case was closed. As there was no blood to
be shed, a summary process was not considered necessary. At last, on the
14th July, the voluminous pile of documents was placed before Vargas. It
was the first time he had laid eyes upon them, and they were, moreover,
written in a language of which he did not understand a word. Such,
however, was his capacity for affairs, that a glance only at the outside
of the case enabled him to form his decision. Within half an hour
afterwards, booted and spurred, he was saying mass in the church of Saint
Gudule, on his way to pronounce sentence at Antwerp. That judgment was
rendered the same day, and confirmed the preceding act of condemnation.