de to suffer by the intrusion of
these ruffians at their firesides would soon, it was thought, compel the
assent of the province to the tax. It was not so, however. The city and
the province remained stanch in their opposition. Accordingly, at the
close of the year (15th. December, 1569) the estates were summoned to
appear within fourteen days before the Blood Council. At the appointed
time the procureur-general was ready with an act of accusation,
accompanied, as was usually the case, with a simultaneous sentence of
condemnation. The indictment revived and recapitulated all previous
offences committed in the city and the province, particularly during the
troubles of 1566, and at the epoch of the treaty with Duchess Margaret.
The inhabitants and the magistrates, both in their individual and public
capacities, were condemned for heresy, rebellion, and misprision. The
city and province were accordingly pronounced guilty of high treason,
were deprived of all their charters, laws, privileges, freedoms, and
customs, and were declared to have forfeited all their property, real and
personal, together with all tolls, rents, excises, and imposts, the whole
being confiscated to the benefit of his Majesty.

The immediate execution of the sentence was, however, suspended, to allow
the estates opportunity to reply. An enormous mass of pleadings, replies,
replications, rejoinders, and apostilles was the result, which few eyes
were destined to read, and least of all those to whom they were nominally
addressed. They were of benefit to none save in the shape of fees which
they engendered to the gentlemen of the robe. It was six months, however,
before the case was closed. As there was no blood to be shed, a summary
process was not considered necessary. At last, on the 14th July, the
voluminous pile of documents was placed before Vargas. It was the first
time he had laid eyes upon them, and they were, moreover, written in a
language of which he did not understand a word. Such, however, was his
capacity for affairs, that a glance only at the outside of the case
enabled him to form his decision. Within half an hour afterwards, booted
and spurred, he was saying mass in the church of Saint Gudule, on his way
to pronounce sentence at Antwerp. That judgment was rendered the same
day, and confirmed the preceding act of condemnation. Vargas went to his
task as cheerfully as if it had been murder. The act of outlawry and
beggary was fulminated aga