It could not be forgotten, however, by nobles and burghers, who had not yet been crushed by the long course of oppression which was in store for them, that there had been a day when Philip’s ancestors had been more humble in their deportment in the face of the provincial authorities.  His great-grandfather, Maximilian, kept in durance by the citizens of Bruges; his great-grandmother, Mary of Burgundy, with streaming eyes and dishevelled hair, supplicating in the market-place for the lives of her treacherous ambassadors, were wont to hold a less imperious language to the delegates of the states.

This burst of ill temper on the part of the monarch was, however, succeeded by a different humor.  It was still thought advisable to dissemble, and to return rather an expostulatory than a peremptory answer to the remonstrance of the States General.  Accordingly a paper of a singular tone was, after the delay of a few days, sent into the assembly.  In this message it was stated that the King was not desirous of placing strangers in the government—­a fact which was proved by the appointment of the Duchess Margaret; that the Spanish infantry was necessary to protect the land from invasion; that the remnant of foreign troops only amounted to three or four thousand men, who claimed considerable arrears of pay, but that the amount due would be forwarded to them immediately after his Majesty’s return to Spain.  It was suggested that the troops would serve as an escort for Don Carlos when he should arrive in the Netherlands, although the King would have been glad to carry them to Spain in his fleet, had he known the wishes of the estates in time.  He would, however, pay for their support himself, although they were to act solely for the good of the provinces.  He observed, moreover, that he had selected two seignors of the provinces, the Prince of Orange and Count Egmont, to take command of these foreign troops, and he promised faithfully that, in the course of three or four months at furthest, they should all be withdrawn.

On the same day in which the estates had assembled at Ghent, Philip had addressed an elaborate letter to the grand council of Mechlin, the supreme court of the provinces, and to the various provincial councils and tribunals of the whole country.  The object of the communication was to give his final orders on the subject of the edicts, and for the execution of all heretics in the most universal and summary manner.  He gave stringent and unequivocal instructions that these decrees for burning, strangling, and burying alive, should be fulfilled to the letter.  He ordered all judicial officers and magistrates “to be curious to enquire on all sides as to the execution of the placards,” stating his intention that “the utmost rigor should be employed without any respect of persons,” and that not only the transgressors should be proceeded against, but also the judges who should prove remiss in their prosecution of heretics.  He alluded to a false opinion which had gained currency that the edicts were only intended against anabaptists.  Correcting this error, he stated that they were to be “enforced against all sectaries, without any distinction or mercy, who might be spotted merely with the errors introduced by Luther.”