youthful kinsman and niece, who, by the will of the Marquis, were to be
united in marriage and to share his estate. The whole drama, beginning
with the death scene, was enacted according to order: Before the arrival
of Alva in the Netherlands, the property of the Marquis was in the hands
of the Government, awaiting the confiscation,--which was but for a brief
season delayed, while on the other hand, Baron Montigny, Bergen's
companion in doom, who was not, however, so easily to be carried off by
homesickness, was closely confined in the alcazar of Segovia, never to
leave a Spanish prison alive. There is something pathetic in the delusion
in which Montigny and his brother, the Count Horn, both indulged, each
believing that the other was out of harm's way, the one by his absence
from the Netherlands, the other by his absence from Spain, while both,
involved in the same meshes, were rapidly and surely approaching their
fate.

In the same despatch of the 9th September, in which the Duke communicated
to Philip the capture of Egmont and Horn, he announced to him his
determination to establish a new court for the trial of crimes committed
during the recent period of troubles. This wonderful tribunal was
accordingly created with the least possible delay. It was called the
Council of Troubles, but it soon acquired the terrible name, by which it
will be forever known in history, of the 'Blood-Council'. It superseded
all other institutions. Every court, from those of the municipal
magistracies up to the supreme councils of the provinces, were forbidden
to take cognizance in future of any cause growing out of the late
troubles. The council of state, although it was not formally disbanded,
fell into complete desuetude, its members being occasionally summoned
into Alva's private chambers in an irregular manner, while its principal
functions were usurped by the Blood-Council. Not only citizens of every
province, but the municipal bodies and even the sovereign provincial
estates themselves, were compelled to plead, like humble individuals,
before this new and extraordinary tribunal. It is unnecessary to allude
to the absolute violation which was thus committed of all charters, laws
and privileges, because the very creation of the council was a bold and
brutal proclamation that those laws and privileges were at an end. The
constitution or maternal principle of this suddenly erected court was of
a twofold nature. It defined and it punish