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 Wilson wrote to Burghley, had become
"Brabantized," as his brother Granvelle expressed himself, and was one of
the commissioners to invite the great rebel to Brussels. The other envoys
were the Abbot of Saint Gertrude, Dr. Leoninus, and the Seigneur de
Liesvelt. These gentlemen, on arriving at Gertruydenberg, presented a
brief but very important memorial to the Prince. In that document they
informed him that the states-general, knowing how efficacious would be
his presence, by reason of his singular prudence, experience, and love
for the welfare and repose of the country, had unanimously united in a
supplication that he would incontinently transport himself to the city of
Brussels, there to advise with them concerning the necessities of the
land; but, as the principal calumny employed by their adversaries was
that all the provinces and leading personages intended to change both
sovereign and religion, at the instigation of his Excellency, it was
desirable to disprove such fictions. They therefore very earnestly
requested the Prince to make some contrary demonstration, by which it
might be manifest to all that his Excellency, together with the estates
of Holland and Zealand, intended faithfully to keep what they had
promised. They prayed, therefore, that the Prince, permitting the
exercise of the Roman Catholic religion in the places which had recently
accepted his authority, would also allow its exercise in Holland and
Zealand. They begged, further, that he would promise by a new and
authentic act, that the provinces of Holland and Zealand, would not
suffer the said exercise to be impugned, or any new worship to be
introduced, in the other provinces of the Netherlands.

This letter might almost be regarded as a trap, set by the Catholic
nobles. Certainly the Ghent Pacification forbade the Reformed religion in
form, and as certainly, winked at its exercise in fact. The proof was,
that the new worship was spreading everywhere, that the exiles for
conscience' sake were returning in swarms, and that the synod of the