gh more elaborate, and sustained by a greater array both
of facts and arguments.[1127] Meanwhile the counsel did not remit their
efforts to have the causes brought before the tribunal of the _Toison
d'Or_. Unless this could be effected, they felt that all endeavors to
establish the innocence of their clients would be unavailing.

Alva had early foreseen the embarrassment to which he would be exposed
on this ground. He had accordingly requested Philip to stop all further
solicitations by making known his own decision in the matter.[1128] The
king in reply assured the duke that men of authority and learning, to
whom the subject had been committed, after a full examination, entirely
confirmed the decision made before Alva's departure, that the case of
treason did not come within the cognizance of the _Toison d'Or_.[1129]
Letters patent accompanied this note, empowering the duke to try the
cause.[1130] With these credentials Alva now strove to silence, if not
to satisfy, the counsel of the prisoners; and, by a formal decree, all
further applications for transferring the cause from his own
jurisdiction to that of the Golden Fleece were peremptorily forbidden.

Yet all were not to be thus silenced. Egmont's countess still continued
unwearied in her efforts to excite a sympathy in her lord's behalf in
all those who would be likely to have any influence with the government.
Early in 1568 she again wrote to Philip, complaining that she had not
been allowed so much as to see her husband. She implored the king to
take her and her children as sureties for Egmont, and permit him to be
removed to one of his own houses. If that could not be, she begged that
he might at least be allowed the air of the castle, lest, though
innocent, his confinement might cost him his life. She alludes to her
miserable condition, with her young and helpless family, and trusts in
the king's goodness and justice that she shall not be forced to seek a
subsistence in Germany, from which country she had been brought to
Flanders by his father the emperor.[1131] The letter, says a chronicler
of the time, was not to be read by any one without sincere commiseration
for the writer.[1132]

The German princes, at the same time, continued their intercessions with
the king for both the nobles; and the duke of Bavaria, and the duke and
duchess of Lorraine, earnestly invoked his clemency in their behalf.
Philip, wearied by this importunity but not wavering in his purpo