Philip answered the letter of the three nobles on the 6th June following.  In this reply, which was brief, he acknowledged the zeal and affection by which the writers had been actuated.  He suggested, nevertheless, that, as they had mentioned no particular cause for adopting the advice contained in their letter, it would be better that one of them should come to Madrid to confer with him.  Such matters, he said, could be better treated by word of mouth.  He might thus receive sufficient information to enable him to form a decision, for, said he in conclusion, it was not his custom to aggrieve any of his ministers without cause.

This was a fine phrase, but under the circumstances of its application, quite ridiculous.  There was no question of aggrieving the minister.  The letter of the three nobles was very simple.  It consisted of a fact and a deduction.  The fact stated was, that the Cardinal was odious to all classes of the nation.  The deduction drawn was, that the government could no longer be carried on by him without imminent danger of ruinous convulsions.  The fact was indisputable.  The person most interested confirmed it in his private letters. “’Tis said,” wrote Granvelle to Philip, “that grandees, nobles, and people, all abhor me, nor am I surprised to find that grandees, nobles, and people are all openly against me, since each and all have been invited to join in the league.”  The Cardinal’s reasons for the existence of the unpopularity, which he admitted to the full, have no bearing upon the point in the letter.  The fact was relied upon to sustain a simple, although a momentous inference.  It was for Philip to decide upon the propriety of the deduction, and to abide by the consequences of his resolution when taken.  As usual, however, the monarch was not capable of making up his mind.  He knew very well that the Cardinal was odious and infamous, because he was the willing impersonation of the royal policy.  Philip was, therefore, logically called upon to abandon the policy or to sustain the minister.  He could make up his mind to do neither the one nor the other.  In the mean time a well-turned period of mock magnanimity had been furnished him.  This he accordingly transmitted as his first answer to a most important communication upon a subject which, in the words of the writers, “admitted neither of dissimulation nor delay.”  To deprive Philip of dissimulation and delay, however, was to take away his all.  They were the two weapons with which he fought his long life’s battle.  They summed up the whole of his intellectual resources.  It was inevitable, therefore, that he should at once have recourse to both on such an emergency as the present one.

At the same time that he sent his answer to the nobles, he wrote an explanatory letter to the Regent.  He informed her that he had received the communication of the three seigniors, but instructed her that she was to appear to know nothing of the matter until Egmont should speak to her upon the subject.  He added that, although he had signified his wish to the three nobles, that one of them, without specifying which, should come to Madrid, he in reality desired that Egmont, who seemed the most tractable of the three, should be the one deputed.  The King added, that his object was to divide the nobles, and to gain time.