and warning interview with Egmont has been described. Since that period,
although his spirit had always been manifesting itself in the capital
like an actual presence; although he had been the magnet towards which
the states throughout all their oscillations had involuntarily vibrated,
yet he had been ever invisible. He had been summoned by the Blood Council
to stand his trial, and had been condemned to death by default. He
answered the summons by a defiance, and the condemnation by two
campaigns, unsuccessful in appearance, but which had in reality
prostrated the authority of the sovereign.

Since that period, the representative of royalty had sued the condemned
traitor for forgiveness. The haughty brother of Philip had almost gone
upon his knees, that the Prince might name his terms, and accept the
proffered hand of majesty.

The Prince had refused, not from contumely, but from distrust. He had
spurned the supplications, as he had defied the proscription of the King.
There could be no friendship between the destroyer and the protector of a
people. Had the Prince desired only the reversal of his death-sentence,
and the infinite aggrandizement of his family, we have seen how
completely he had held these issues in his power. Never had it been more
easy, plausible, tempting, for a proscribed patriot to turn his back upon
an almost sinking cause. We have seen how his brave and subtle Batavian
prototype, Civilis, dealt with the representative of Roman despotism. The
possible or impossible Netherland Republic of the first century of our
era had been reluctantly abandoned, but the modern Civilis had justly
more confidence in his people.

And now again the scene was changed. The son of the Emperor, the King's
brother, was virtually beleaguered; the proscribed rebel had arrived at
victory through a long series of defeats. The nation everywhere
acknowledged him master, and was in undisguised revolt against the
anointed sovereign. The great nobles, who hated Philip on the one hand,
and the Reformed religion on the other, were obliged, in obedience to the
dictates of a people with whom they had little sympathy, to accept the
ascendency of the Calvinist Prince, of whom they were profoundly jealous.
Even the fleeting and incapable Aerschot was obliged to simulate
adhesion; even the brave Champagny, cordial hater of Spaniards, but most
devotedly Catholic, "the chiefest man of wysedome and stomach at that
tyme in Brussels," so envoy