e two remarkable victories which
were soon to make the name of Egmont like the sound of a trumpet
throughout the whole country. Tall, magnificent in costume, with dark
flowing hair, soft brown eye, smooth cheek, a slight mustache, and
features of almost feminine delicacy--such was the gallant and
ill-fated Lamoral Egmont. The Count of Hoorne,[22] too, with bold,
sullen face, and fan-shaped beard--a brave, honest, discontented,
quarrelsome, unpopular man; those other twins in doom, the Marquis
Berghen and the Lord of Montigny; the Baron Berlaymont, brave,
intensely loyal, insatiably greedy for office and wages, but who at
least never served but one party; the Duke of Arschot, who was to
serve all, essay to rule all, and to betray all--a splendid seignior,
magnificent in cramoisy velvet, but a poor creature, who traced his
pedigree from Adam according to the family monumental inscriptions at
Louvain, but who was better known as grandnephew of the Emperor's
famous tutor Chievres; the bold, debauched Brederode, with handsome,
reckless face and turbulent demeanor; the infamous Noircarmes, whose
name was to be covered with eternal execration for aping toward his
own compatriots and kindred as much of Alva's atrocities and avarice
as he was permitted to exercise; the distinguished soldiers Meghen and
Aremberg--these, with many others whose deeds of arms were to become
celebrated throughout Europe, were all conspicuous in the brilliant
crowd. There, too, was that learned Frisian, President Viglius,
crafty, plausible, adroit, eloquent--a small, brisk man, with long
yellow hair, glittering green eyes, round, tumid, rosy cheeks, and
flowing beard. Foremost among the Spanish grandees, and close to
Philip, stood the famous favorite, Ruy Gomez, or, as he was familiarly
called, "_Re y Gomez_" (King and Gomez)--a man of meridional aspect,
with coal-black hair and beard, gleaming eyes, a face pallid with
intense application, and slender but handsome figure; while in
immediate attendance upon the Emperor was the immortal Prince of
Orange.

[Footnote 22: See Prescott's account of the execution of Egmont and
Hoorne, in Volume IX of this collection.]

Such were a few only of the most prominent in that gay throng, whose
fortunes in part it will be our humble duty to narrate; how many of
them passing through all this glitter to a dark and mysterious gloom!
some to perish on public scaffolds, some by midnight assassination;
others, more for