nterrogatories by Vargas and others, were removed from Ghent to
Brussels, on the 3d of June, under a strong escort. The following
day they passed through the mockery of a trial before the Council
of Blood; and on the 5th they were both beheaded in the great
square of Brussels, in the presence of Alva, who gloated on the
spectacle from a balcony that commanded the execution. The same day
Van Straeten, and Casambrot shared the fate of their illustrious
friends, in the castle of Vilvorde; with many others whose names
only find a place in the local chronicles of the times. Egmont
and Horn met their fate with the firmness expected from their
well-proved courage.

These judicial murders excited in the Netherlands an agitation
without bounds. It was no longer hatred or aversion that filled
men's minds, but fury and despair. The outbursting of a general
revolt was hourly watched for. The foreign powers, without exception,
expressed their disapproval of these executions. The emperor
Maximilian II., and all the Catholic princes, condemned them.
The former sent his brother expressly to the king of Spain, to
warn him that without a cessation of his cruelties he could not
restrain a general declaration from the members of the empire,
which would, in all likelihood, deprive him of every acre of
land in the Netherlands. The princes of the Protestant states
held no terms in the expression of their disgust and resentment;
and everything seemed now ripe, both at home and abroad, to favor
the enterprise on which the Prince of Orange was determined to
risk his fortune and his life. But his principal resources were
to be found in his genius and courage, and in the heroic devotion
partaken by his whole family in the cause of their country. His
brother, Count John, advanced him a considerable sum of money;
the Flemings and Hollanders, in England and elsewhere, subscribed
largely; the prince himself, after raising loans in every possible
way on his private means, sold his jewels, his plate, and even
the furniture of his houses, and threw the amount into the common
fund.

Two remarkable events took place this year in Spain, and added
to the general odium entertained against Philip's character
throughout Europe. The first was the death of his son Don Carlos,
whose sad story is too well known in connection with the annals
of his country to require a place here; the other was the death
of the queen. Universal opinion assigned poison as the cau