banishing without law and against justice, in the space of a few months,
so many of the highest nobles in the land. Although in the beginning of
the cruel persecution, the pretext had been the maintenance of the
Catholic religion, yet it was affirmed they had not failed to exercise
their barbarity upon Catholics also, and even upon ecclesiastics. Of the
principal persons put to death, no one, it was asserted, had been more
devoted to the ancient church than was the brave Count Egmont, who, for
his famous victories in the service of Spain, could never be forgotten in
veracious history any more than could be the cruelty of his execution.

The land had been made desolate, continued the Queen, with fire, sword,
famine, and murder. These misfortunes had ever been bitterly deplored by
friendly nations, and none could more truly regret such sufferings than
did the English, the oldest allies, and familiar neighbours of the
Provinces, who had been as close to them in the olden time by community
of connexion and language, as man and wife. She declared that she had
frequently, by amicable embassies, warned her brother of Spain--speaking
to him like a good, dear sister and neighbour--that unless he restrained
the cruelty of his governors and their soldiers, he was sure to force his
Provinces into allegiance to some other power. She expressed the danger
in which she should be placed if the Spaniards succeeded in establishing
their absolute government in the Netherlands, from which position their
attacks upon England would be incessant. She spoke of the enterprise
favoured and set on foot by the Pope and by Spain, against the kingdom of
Ireland. She alluded to the dismissal of the Spanish envoy, Don
Bernardino de Mendoza, who had been treated by her with great regard for
a long time, but who had been afterwards discovered in league with
certain ill-disposed and seditious subjects of hers, and with publicly
condemned traitors. That envoy had arranged a plot according to which,
as appeared by his secret despatches, an invasion of England by a force