and secretly registered, that Brederode had
eaten capons and other meat at Antwerp, upon Good Friday, which happened
to be the day of his visit to that city. He denied the charge, however;
with ludicrous vehemence. "They who have told Madame that we ate meat in
Antwerp," he wrote to Count Louis, "have lied wickedly and miserably,
twenty-four feet down in their throats." He added that his nephew,
Charles Mansfeld, who, notwithstanding the indignant prohibition of his
father, had assisted of the presentation of the Request, and was then in
his uncle's company at Antwerp, had ordered a capon, which Brederode had
countermanded. "They told me afterwards," said he, "that my nephew had
broiled a sausage in his chamber. I suppose that he thought himself in
Spain, where they allow themselves such dainties."

Let it not be thought that these trifles are beneath the dignity of
history. Matters like these filled the whole soul of Philip, swelled the
bills of indictment for thousands of higher and better men than
Brederode, and furnished occupation as well for secret correspondents and
spies as for the most dignified functionaries of Government. Capons or
sausages on Good Friday, the Psalms of Clement Marot, the Sermon on the
Mount in the vernacular, led to the rack, the gibbet, and the stake, but
ushered in a war against the inquisition which was to last for eighty
years. Brederode was not to be the hero of that party which he disgraced
by his buffoonery. Had he lived, he might, perhaps, like many of his
confederates, have redeemed, by his bravery in the field, a character
which his orgies had rendered despicable. He now left Antwerp for the
north of Holland, where, as he soon afterwards reported to Count Louis,
"the beggars were as numerous as the sands on the seashore."

His "nephew Charles," two months afterwards, obeyed his father's
injunction, and withdrew formally from the confederacy.

Meantime the rumor had gone abroad that the Request of the nobles had
already produced good fruit, that the edicts were to be mitigated, the
inquisition abolished, liberty of conscience eventually to prevail. "Upon
these reports," says a contemporary, "all the vermin of exiles and
fugitives for religion, as well as those who had kept in concealment,
began to lift up their heads and thrust forth their horns." It was known
that Margaret of Parma had ordered the inquisitors and magistrates to
conduct themselves "modestly and discreetly." It was