deserving punishment, was entitled to a signal reward.

So much for the famous treason of Counts Egmont and Horn, so far as
regards the history of the proceedings and the merits of the case. The
last act of the tragedy was precipitated by occurrences which must be now
narrated.

The Prince of Orange had at last thrown down the gauntlet. Proscribed,
outlawed, with his Netherland property confiscated, and his eldest child
kidnapped, he saw sufficient personal justification for at last stepping
into the lists, the avowed champion of a nation's wrongs. Whether the
revolution was to be successful, or to be disastrously crushed; whether
its result would be to place him upon a throne or a scaffold, not even
he, the deep-revolving and taciturn politician, could possibly foresee.
The Reformation, in which he took both a political and a religious
interest, might prove a sufficient lever in his hands for the overthrow
of Spanish power in the Netherlands. The inquisition might roll back upon
his country and himself, crushing them forever. The chances seemed with
the inquisition. The Spaniards, under the first chieftain in Europe, were
encamped and entrenched in the provinces. The Huguenots had just made
their fatal peace in France, to the prophetic dissatisfaction of Coligny.
The leading men of liberal sentiments in the Netherlands were captive or
in exile. All were embarrassed by the confiscations which, in
anticipation of sentence, had severed the nerves of war. The country was
terror-stricken; paralyzed, motionless, abject, forswearing its
convictions, and imploring only life. At this moment William of Orange
reappeared upon the scene.

He replied to the act of condemnation, which had been pronounced against
him in default, by a published paper, of moderate length and great
eloquence. He had repeatedly offered to place himself, he said, upon
trial before a competent court. As a Knight of the Fleece, as a member of
the Holy Roman Empire, as a sovereign prince, he could acknowledge no
tribunal save the chapters of the knights or of the realm. The Emperor's
personal intercession with Philip had been employed in vain, to obtain
the adjudication of his case by either. It would be both death and
degradation on his part to acknowledge the jurisdiction of the infamous
Council of Blood. He scorned, he said, to plead his cause "before he knew
not what base knaves, not fit to be the valets of his companions and
himself."

He appealed t