ngle preliminary investigation, not the shadow of an information had
preceded the long imprisonment of two men so elevated in rank, so
distinguished in the public service. After the expiration of two months,
however, the Duke condescended to commence a mock process against them.
The councillors appointed to this work were Vargas and Del Rio, assisted
by Secretary Praets. These persons visited the Admiral on the 10th, 11th,
12th and 17th of November, and Count Egmont on the 12th, 13th, 14th, and
16th, of the same month; requiring them to respond to a long, confused,
and rambling collection of interrogatories. They were obliged to render
these replies in prison, unassisted by any advocates, on penalty of being
condemned 'in contumaciam'. The questions, awkwardly drawn up as they
seemed, were yet tortuously and cunningly arranged with a view of
entrapping the prisoners into self-contradiction. After this work had
been completed, all the papers by which they intended to justify their
answers were taken away from them. Previously, too, their houses and
those of their secretaries, Bakkerzeel and Alonzo de la Loo, had been
thoroughly ransacked, and every letter and document which could be found
placed in the hands of government. Bakkerzeel, moreover, as already
stated, had been repeatedly placed upon the rack, for the purpose of
extorting confessions which might implicate his master. These
preliminaries and precautionary steps having been taken, the Counts had
again been left to their solitude for two months longer. On the 10th
January, each was furnished with a copy of the declarations or
accusations filed against him by the procurator-general. To these
documents, drawn up respectively in sixty-three, and in ninety articles,
they were required, within five days' time, without the assistance of an
advocate, and without consultation with any human being, to deliver a
written answer, on pain, as before, of being proceeded against and
condemned by default.

This order was obeyed within nearly the prescribed period and here, it
may be said, their own participation in their trial ceased; while the
rest of the proceedings were buried in the deep bosom of the
Blood-Council. After their answers had been delivered, and not till then,
the prisoners were, by an additional mockery, permitted to employ
advocates. These advocates, however, were allowed only occasional
interviews with their clients, and always in the presence of certain
pers