Gutenberg Literary Edition #4815

Late in October, the Duke of Alva made his triumphant entry into the new fortress. During his absence, which was to continue during the remainder of the year, he had ordered the Secretary Courteville and the Councillor del Rio to superintend the commission, which was then actually engaged in collecting materials for the prosecutions to be instituted against the Prince of Orange and the other nobles who had abandoned the country. Accordingly, soon after his return, on the 19th of January, 1568, the Prince, his brother Louis of Nassau, his brother-in-law, Count Van den Berg, the Count Hoogstraaten, the Count Culemburg, and the Baron Montigny, were summoned in the name of Alva to appear before the Blood- Council, within thrice fourteen days from the date of the proclamation, under pain of perpetual banishment with confiscation of their estates. It is needless to say that these seigniors did not obey the summons. They knew full well that their obedience would be rewarded only by death.

The charges against the Prince of Orange, which were drawn up in ten articles, stated, chiefly and briefly, that he had been, and was, the head and front of the rebellion; that as soon as his Majesty had left the Netherlands, he had begun his machinations to make himself master of the country and to expel his sovereign by force, if he should attempt to return to the provinces; that he had seduced his Majesty's subjects by false pretences that the Spanish inquisition was about to be introduced; that he had been the secret encourager and director of Brederode and the confederated nobles; and that when sent to Antwerp, in the name of the Regent, to put down the rebellion, he had encouraged heresy and accorded freedom of religion to the Reformers.

The articles against Hoogstraaten and the other gentlemen mere of similar tenor. It certainly was not a slender proof of the calm effrontery of the government thus to see Alva's proclamation charging it as a crime upon Orange that he had inveigled the lieges into revolt by a false assertion that the inquisition was about to be established, when letters from the Duke to Philip, and from Granvelle to Philip, dated upon nearly the same day, advised the immediate restoration of the inquisition as 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.