to
the service of the king, to do their best for the establishment
of order, and to punish the iconoclasts. A regular treaty to
this effect was drawn up and executed by the respective
plenipotentiaries, and formally approved by the stadtholderess,
who affixed her sign-manual to the instrument. She only consented
to this measure after a long struggle, and with tears in her
eyes; and it was with a trembling hand that she wrote an account
of these transactions to the king.

Soon after this the several governors repaired to their respective
provinces, and their efforts for the re-establishment of tranquillity
were attended with various degrees of success. Several of the
ringleaders in the late excesses were executed; and this severity
was not confined to the partisans of the Catholic Church. The
Prince of Orange and Count Egmont, with others of the patriot
lords, set the example of this just severity. John Casambrot,
lord of Beckerzeel, Egmont's secretary, and a leading member
of the confederation, put himself at the head of some others
of the associated gentlemen, fell upon a refractory band of
iconoclasts near Gramont, in Flanders, and took thirty prisoners,
of whom he ordered twenty-eight to be hanged on the spot.

CHAPTER IX

TO THE ADMINISTRATION OF REQUESENS

A.D. 1566--1573

All the services just related in the common cause of the country
and the king produced no effect on the vindictive spirit of the
latter. Neither the lapse of time, the proofs of repentance, nor
the fulfilment of their duty, could efface the hatred excited
by a conscientious opposition to even one design of despotism.

Philip was ill at Segovia when he received accounts of the excesses
of the image-breakers, and of the convention concluded with the
heretics. Despatches from the stadtholderess, with private advice
from Viglius, Egmont, Mansfield, Meghem, De Berlaimont, and others,
gave him ample information as to the real state of things, and they
thus strove to palliate their having acceded to the convention. The
emperor even wrote to his royal nephew, imploring him to treat his
wayward subjects with moderation, and offered his mediation between
them. Philip, though severely suffering, gave great attention to
the details of this correspondence, which he minutely examined,
and laid before his council of state, with notes and observations
taken by himself. But he took special care to send to them only
such parts as he chose them to b