Egmont.  Think you that you will be able to reach them all?  Do we not daily hear that fear is driving them to and fro, and forcing them out of the land?  The more wealthy will escape to other countries with their property, their children, and their friends; while the poor will carry their industrious hands to our neighbours.

Alva.  They will, if they cannot be prevented.  It is on this account that the king desires counsel and aid from every prince, zealous co-operation from every stadtholder; not merely a description of the present posture of affairs, or conjectures as to what might take place were events suffered to hold on their course without interruption.  To contemplate a mighty evil, to flatter oneself with hope, to trust to time, to strike a blow, like the clown in a play, so as to make a noise and appear to do something, when in fact one would fain do nothing; is not such conduct calculated to awaken a suspicion that those who act thus contemplate with satisfaction a rebellion, which they would not indeed excite, but which they are by no means unwilling to encourage?

Egmont (about to break forth, restrains himself, and after a brief pause, speaks with composure).  Not every design is obvious, and many a man’s design is misconstrued.  It is widely rumoured, however, that the object which the king has in view is not so much to govern the provinces according to uniform and dearly defined laws, to maintain the majesty of religion, and to give his people universal peace, as unconditionally to subjugate them, to rob them of their ancient rights, to appropriate their possessions, to curtail the fair privileges of the nobles, for whose sake alone they are ready to serve him with life and limb.  Religion, it is said, is merely a splendid device, behind which every dangerous design may be contrived with the greater ease; the prostrate crowds adore the sacred symbols pictured there, while behind lurks the fowler ready to ensnare them.

Alva.  This must I hear from you?

Egmont.  I speak not my own sentiments!  I but repeat what is loudly rumoured, and uttered now here and now there by great and by humble, by wise men and fools.  The Netherlanders fear a double yoke, and who will be surety to them for their liberty?

Alva.  Liberty!  A fair word when rightly understood.  What liberty would they have?  What is the freedom of the most free?  To do right!  And in that the monarch will not hinder them.  No!  No!  They imagine themselves enslaved, when they have not the power to injure themselves and others.  Would it not be better to abdicate at once, rather than rule such a people?  When the country is threatened by foreign invaders, the burghers, occupied only with their immediate interests, bestow no thought upon the advancing foe, and when the king requires their aid, they quarrel among themselves, and thus, as it were, conspire with the enemy.  Far better is it to circumscribe their power, to control and guide them for their good, as children are controlled and guided.  Trust me, a people grows neither old nor wise, a people remains always in its infancy.