The revolting cruelty and illegality of the first edicts were already admitted.  As to the decrees of this memorable council, they were only adapted for countries in submission to an absolute despotism.  They were received in the Netherlands with general reprobation.  Even the new bishops loudly denounced them as unjust innovations; and thus Philip found zealous opponents in those on whom he had reckoned as his most servile tools.  The stadtholderess was not the less urged to implicit obedience to the orders of the king by Viglius and De Berlaimont, who took upon themselves an almost menacing tone.  The duchess assembled a council of state, and asked its advice as to her proceedings.  The Prince of Orange at once boldly proposed disobedience to measures fraught with danger to the monarchy and ruin to the nation.  The council could not resist his appeal to their best feelings.  His proposal that fresh remonstrances should be addressed to the king met with almost general support.  The president Viglius, who had spoken in the opening of the council in favor of the king’s orders, was overwhelmed by William’s reasoning, and demanded time to prepare his reply.  His agitation during the debate, and his despair of carrying the measures against the patriot party, brought on in the night an attack of apoplexy.

It was resolved to despatch a special envoy to Spain, to explain to Philip the views of the council, and to lay before him a plan proposed by the Prince of Orange for forming a junction between the two councils and that of finance, and forming them into one body.  The object of this measure was at once to give greater union and power to the provisional government, to create a central administration in the Netherlands, and to remove from some obscure and avaricious financiers the exclusive management of the national resources.  The Count of Egmont, chosen by the council for this important mission, set out for Madrid in the month of February, 1565.  Philip received him with profound hypocrisy; loaded him with the most flattering promises; sent him back in the utmost elation:  and when the credulous count returned to Brussels, he found that the written orders, of which he was the bearer, were in direct variance with every word which the king had uttered.

These orders were chiefly concerning the reiterated subject of the persecution to be inflexibly pursued against the religious reformers.  Not satisfied with the hitherto established forms of punishment, Philip now expressly commanded that the more revolting means decreed by his father in the rigor of his early zeal, such as burning, living burial, and the like, should be adopted; and he somewhat more obscurely directed that the victims should be no longer publicly immolated, but secretly destroyed.  He endeavored, by this vague phraseology, to avoid the actual utterance of the word “inquisition”; but he thus virtually established that atrocious tribunal, with attributes still more terrific than even in Spain; for there the condemned had at least the consolation of dying in open day, and of displaying the fortitude which is rarely proof against the horror of a private execution.  Philip had thus consummated his treason against the principles of justice and the practices of jurisprudence, which had heretofore characterized the country; and against the most vital of those privileges which he had solemnly sworn to maintain.