with orders to allow no
passage either to the duchess or her followers.--Thus a prisoner in her
own capital, Margaret conformed to necessity, and, with the best grace
she could, consented to relinquish her scheme of departure.[833]

[Sidenote: CHURCHES GRANTED TO REFORMERS.]

The question now recurred as to the course to be pursued; and the more
she pondered on the embarrassments of her position, the more she became
satisfied that no means of extricating herself remained but that
proposed by the nobles. Yet, in thus yielding to necessity, she did so
protesting that she was acting under compulsion.[834] On the
twenty-third of August, Margaret executed an instrument, by which she
engaged that no harm should come to the members of the league for
anything hitherto done by them. She further authorized the lords to
announce to the confederates her consent to the religious meetings of
the Reformed, in places where they had been hitherto held, until his
majesty and the states-general should otherwise determine. It was on the
condition, however, that they should go there unarmed, and nowhere offer
disturbance to the Catholics.

On the twenty-fifth of the month the confederate nobles signed an
agreement on their part and solemnly swore that they would aid the
regent to the utmost in suppressing the disorders of the country, and in
bringing their authors to justice; agreeing, moreover, that, so long as
the regent should be true to the compact, the league should be
considered as null and void.[835]

The feelings of Margaret, in making the concessions required of her, may
be gathered from the perusal of her private correspondence with her
brother. No act in her public life ever caused her so deep a
mortification; and she never forgave the authors of it. "It was forced
upon me," she writes to Philip; "but, happily, you will not be bound by
it." And she beseeches him to come at once, in such strength as would
enable him to conquer the country for himself, or to give her the means
of doing so.[836]--Margaret, in early life, had been placed in the hands
of Ignatius Loyola. More than one passage in her history proves that the
lessons of the Jesuit had not been thrown away.

During these discussions the panic had been such, that it was thought
advisable to strengthen the garrison under command of Count Mansfeldt,
and keep the greater part of the citizens under arms day and night. When
this arrangement was concluded, the great lords