xtort from the regent a letter of indemnity for their persons.

Those among them who were conscious of a disloyal sympathy with the
Protestant mob looked on its licentiousness as a favorable circumstance
for the league; the apparent success of those to whose degrading
fellowship they had deigned to stoop led them to alter their tone; their
former laudable zeal began to degenerate into insolence and defiance.
Many thought that they ought to avail themselves of the general
confusion and the perplexity of the duchess to assume a bolder tone and
heap demand upon demand. The Roman Catholic members of the league,
among whom many were in their hearts still strongly inclined to the
royal cause, and who had been drawn into a connection with the league by
occasion and example, rather than from feeling and conviction, now heard
to their astonishment propositions for establishing universal freedom of
religion, and were not a little shocked to discover in how perilous an
enterprise they had hastily implicated themselves. On this discovery
the young Count Mansfeld withdrew immediately from it, and internal
dissensions already began to undermine the work of precipitation and
haste, and imperceptibly to loosen the joints of the league.

Count Egmont and William of Orange were empowered by the regent to treat
with the confederates. Twelve of the latter, among whom were Louis of
Nassau, Brederode, and Kuilemberg, conferred with them in Duffle, a
village near Malines. "Wherefore this new step?" demanded the regent
by the mouth of these two noblemen. "I was required to despatch
ambassadors to Spain; and I sent them. The edicts and the Inquisition
were complained of as too rigorous; I have rendered both more lenient.
A general assembly of the states of the realm was proposed; I have
submitted this request to the king because I could not grant it from my
own authority. What, then, have I unwittingly either omitted or done
that should render necessary this assembling in St. Truyen? Is it
perhaps fear of the king's anger and of its consequences that disturbs
the confederates? The provocation certainly is great, but his mercy is
even greater. Where now is the promise of the league to excite no
disturbances amongst the people? Where those high-sounding professions
that they were ready to die at my feet rather, than offend against any
of the prerogatives of the crown? The innovators already venture on
things which border closely on rebellion, and